My Edible Garden

I've been gardening for most of my life and have been a devoted fan of organic gardening the whole time. It just makes so much more sense to work in harmony with Mother Nature than to fight her. Besides which it is better for the planet and better for our bodies. Here you can see what I'm planting and harvesting, with gardening hints and resources thrown in for good measure.

Monday, July 16, 2012

Harvest Monday

Summer Apples
Welcome to Harvest Monday! I can't believe another week has gone by already and we are entering the second half of the year. Oh my where has time gone?  Harvest Monday is a great blog hop sponsored by Daphne's Dandelions, so hop on over and visit with other gardeners from around the world.

One day the wind was blowing the apples off the tree plus the birds were starting to get into them, so I picked the tree clean. They are a bit sour, was waiting for them to ripen up a bit. I have been trying to find out what is causing that brown corky growth on the tops of some of them. When I search for cork in apples the pictures look different from this and shows corky spots on the inside. These are fine inside, just have that dry brown spot mostly on the top part and not all of the apples show it. I'm wondering if it's sunburn.

Golden Bantam Improved
This year I have some of the best looking corn plants I have ever had, they went 7 feet with the tassels, almost all had 2 ears per stalk and some put out tillers and tried to make more. BUT it was so very hot and dry when it put out tassels and silks that the pollen was just drying up, so my beautiful 10-12 inch ears are nowhere near being filled. What is there tastes delicious, however. So, note to self, corn should not tassel the last two weeks of June!

Eggplant



I harvested some more eggplant. These are not as big as they look; that is one of those little cereal bowls from the dollar store.












tomatoes


The small salad tomatoes are winding down, only 3 pounds this week instead of nearly 5. They are now split about half and half, Princepe and Snow White.

In addition there were two Black from Tula, along with a paste tomato and a small round one from volunteer plants.

Rond di Nice


And of course some Rond di Nice squash. This one weighs about a pound. The five pound monster that was imitating a green pumpkin was fed to the chickens. The other sorts should be coming on shortly, maybe next week. I think I'm going to stuff this one full of tomatoes and cheese. Maybe I"ll add a little sausage to it. mmmmmm.....

See this post for a garden tour and the newest additions to the poultry flock.

34 comments:

  1. Very nice harvest! How did Tula taste? I wish I had your apples :)

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  2. I would use the term "scab" or "netted" in your on-line search rather than "cork" because skin toughness like that is usually described as scabbing. They look perfectly good to me though - I view skin issues as just cosmetic problems!

    The tomatoes look very yummy and I like your idea of how you are going to use the squash. One of my favorite recipes is "pumpking stuffed with everything good" which fills the cleaned out pumpkin with bread cubes, gruyere cheese chunks, crisp bacon cut into pieces, chopped onion, dried cranberries, and then has cream with some nutmeg poured over it before baking it all in the oven - heavenly!

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    1. You are making me hungry, and I just finished eating dinner...

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    2. Thanks for the tip, but apple scab is a disease in cool weather and looks very different. & netted just got me stuff about apple computers or pictures of apples in net bags. Sunburn got me a research paper and with one photo that is slightly similar. Part of the tree gets strong afternoon sun and it's mostly on the apples on that side so that's why I think it's related to the fruit getting too hot. I might try rigging some shade netting up next year.

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  3. Nice corn! I planted mine way too late - will see if I get anything out of them this season.

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  4. Lovely harvest. I love the corn.

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  5. Very nice harvest, Mary. The stuffed squash sounds good. I vote for adding the sausage.

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  6. I've found any lower, second ears pollinate very poorly - probably because the leaves block the pollen. I have two varieties, one timed for early August and the other for late August.

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    1. these were all the primary ears. Actually some of the secondary ears were near perfect; I think because some of the tillers tasseled when these silked and by then we'd had a bit of rain and some more moderate temps.

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  7. Sorry about the corn, I've never grown it due to lack of space.

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  8. Those apples will make some fine applesauce!

    I hope you enjoyed those black tomatoes....they look yummy!

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    1. The tomatatoes have been yummy. I will probably just eat the apples as they ripen up a bit. It's way too hot yet to be canning!

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  9. That is too bad about the corn not pollinating. I'm worried about my first ears. Only a handful germinated in the first round. So I reseeded. So the first ones put out ears before the others were putting out pollen. I've got my fingers crossed.

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    1. Well hopefully you will get some. The secondary ears on these plants are much better looking.

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  10. I stopped growing corn because of the wild life problem. Your tomatoes look yummy. Still waiting for mine to hurry up and produce.

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    1. I haven't had too much wild life interested in the corn so far. Hope your tomatoes ripen soon!

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  11. Your harvest looks great. I'm jealous of your apples! Sorry about the corn, I've given up on growing corn in the garden. It takes so much space and water. We found a local organic farmer that grows corn and sells at the farmers market and we buy from him now!!

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    1. The nearest large farms of any sort are 100 miles from me. So it's grow my own or get gods know what at the grocery store.

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  12. Looks like you are swimming in produce. Your apples look great. How old are your trees?

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    1. My apple trees are about 15 years old but neither of them is in very good soil and some years I haven't always watered them enough. So very happy to keep on top of things this year and get some.

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  13. Nice harvest. Sorry about the corn but at least it is some corn! How will you use the apples. Do you have to spray your trees at all? Nancy

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    1. I will just eat the apples. Don't spray any pesticides on my property at all. Sometimes I spray fish & seaweed on things; sometimes a liquid iron supplement if needed. Thats about it.

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  14. I too am jealous of your apples, I love sour apples for baking. Your whole harvest looks wonderful!

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  15. You had some really good looking harvests, but so sorry about the corn, there always seems to be something in the garden that isn't happy. Better luck next time.

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  16. I love sour apples - I bet those would be just right for me.

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  17. We recently thinned our apple tree and made a few pints of apple jam...it's quite delicious! I also learned recently that under-ripe apples can make an awesome pectin :-)

    Sorry about your corn! At least the few bits you're getting are good ones ;-)

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  18. Loving your blog and your produce. I am an eggplant fancier so love your eggplant experiment. I have some funny colour outcomes at the tail of my last summer as well. I might have to try your experimentation on myself.

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  19. How disappointing about your corn, I only grew a small amount last year, but all had two cobs and were perfect looking inside, I was so pleased, but I remember my dad have all sorts of problems with his corn in the past.

    The rest of you harvest looks wonderful.

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  20. Thanks everyone for stopping by and taking the time to comment. I love doing this blog hop and 'chatting' with all of you!

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  21. Your eggplant is so shiny and blemish free! Do the white ones taste different than the purple ones. Last year I tried growing gretel eggplant, but they were so tiny and a little chewy. but they were beautiful.

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    1. These eggplants are pretty small. I haven't noticed a taste difference in the colors. Mostly whether the seeds are turning brown or not. If the seeds are getting brown then the fruit is pretty bitter.

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  22. Oh Apples - how wonderful! We don't grow corn in our garden, but buy it at a local farmer's market. They had the same problem with theirs due to the lack of rain and crazy heat. I guess it is a bad year for corn.

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