Harvest

Today I harvested the biggest haul yet from the potager. Since mid June, I've been eating fresh tomatoes, squash, and cucumbers. All told, I've probably picked and eaten +/- 40 tomatoes of every variety, a dozen yellow squash, and a handful of butterbeans. I ate those beans right in the garden, raw. They were delicious. Hopefully I'll get enough for a 'mess' before summer ends.

Today I picked butternut squash, some more cucumbers, and a lot of tomatoes.



After having sampled all the varieties, I'll not be growing San Marzano again. These roma tomatoes are the mealiest, nastiest, blandest things I've ever eaten. Grocery store tomatoes are better than these sad things. My favorite is a toss-up between Green Zebra and Celebrity. The beefsteaks, while impressive in size, really haven't been all that tasty. Burstzyn is a good tomato too, but way too small for my appetite. It takes 6-8 to compare to the two cucumbers I chop, salt, and add a splash of white vinegar to. That's my kind of salad. Rutgers are just starting to ripen, and they're okay. I think all the rain we had this spring and the drought of the past few weeks has really taken a toll on the flavor and consistency of the fruits. I've been watering, but tap water only does so much for the veggies. It appears that even with 31 plants, I won't harvest enough to freeze or can as much as I wanted. I'll probably depend on my parent's huge plantings to get a couple 5-gallon buckets for that. I need a new plan for next year.

From other areas of the garden, I moved three Red Texas Star hibiscus plants that weren't getting enough sun. They're in the shrub border now. The vitex got planted too. I also moved the New Zealand flax into this bed. One loropetalum died, so it got tossed. I didn't have high hopes for it anyway. Poor thing struggled all summer last year, then nearly froze to death over the winter. Yanking it out and moving it when it was 95 degrees probably didn't help.

Vitex



Red Texas Star



A new double rudbeckia



The ugliest combination I've grown to date. The rudbeckia is brown, not orange. The camera lies.



I planted out the rudbeckia hirta seeds I summer sowed a few weeks ago. They had their second set of leaves and were starting to grow. Some went into the bed by the basement door where things seem to die as soon as I plant them. A few others replaced the dead geraniums near the mailbox. I pulled out dayflowers around the tree in the front yard and disturbed a yellow jacket nest. I didn't get to finish cleaning that area. Maybe this winter....

75 and sunny. Rain in the forecast Saturday and Sunday. I hope we get more than we did last night. While grateful, I need a lot more if I'm going to harvest any more tomatoes, squash, or cucumbers. The okra is blooming now.