Young leeks

I'd never grown leeks before, but was fascinated that one of our main vegetable commercial growers (in the US) was providing them to the garden centers of big box stores (Lowes and Home Depot) as well as to independent feed and seed stores.

I bought a pot full of MANY small leek seedlings this spring, and struggled to separate out the tiny seedlings. I transplanted some to containers, some to places in the garden, and then ran out of steam (they were very small seedlings).

But I harvested a young leek today, just to check on their progress. (I didn't follow regular leek protocol for our region of sowing seeds in early fall, but obviously this seed/transplant company didn't either.)

Hooray. It was tender and nice. Tomatoes, peppers, red cabbage, and squash were also from my (neglected) garden.

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More summer vegetables

In spite of the dry summer so far, the main vegetable garden looks lush and the satellite garden looks like a jungle. Yes, I do water, but I try to be judicious and soak deeply (and am thankful that the winter and spring rains have filled the lakes that provide much of our local water supply).

Compared to the crushing drought conditions of the last few years, it's basically unbelievable to have so many productive tomato, pepper, and squash plants. (The beans will recover from their slump, and I'll be planting a last round of French filet bush beans tomorrow, thanks to my friend CEN's extra seeds). Her garden was lovely, neat and tidy, when I visited it last week. I couldn't help but think about the contrast as I watered this evening!

It's a good thing that a 7 ct chest freezer is being delivered tomorrow, to go in the basement. I feel obligated to do something with all these vegetables, whether it's preserving the harvest or giving them away!

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Eastern Cottontail rabbit habitat

In our garden, currently, 'our' rabbit hangs out here.

the 'front meadow' aka the Piedmont prairie

But all of the young okra seedlings, and a number of squash leaves in the satellite garden disappeared yesterday evening, so I don't know whether to think 'rabbit' or 'young woodchuck.'

Oh, well, we don't much care for okra (it was an experiment) and unless the squash vine borers hurry up (there have been a few casualties already), we'll have more squash than we can eat.

We're fortunate (and I'm grateful) to have plenty of space to spread out herbivore impact.

Probably the mama woodchuck will come up from the woodpile and eat all of the squash vines while we're up in the mountains this weekend and I won't sound so positive!

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Giant squash and other oddities

Young small squash are absolutely delicious, and not shippable at all. From home gardens and farmer's markets, they're a summer highlight. I like to enjoy as many different summer squash as I can, and for some reason, am hopeful this season to avoid the dreaded squash vine borers that allow me to harvest one or two from my vines, before causing collapse of the entire plant.

Who knows why I think my pattypan, flying saucer, eight ball (Ronde di Nice), cocozelle, butterstick, etc. C. pepo squashes might avoid them this year? Extra cold weather this winter? Late planting? Unusual optimism? We'll see. I'm sure my reliable tromboncino squash (a C. moschata variety) and perhaps the mystery summer squash mix (AKA small young gourds) will provide nice fruits regardless (uh, unless the woodchuck(s) are extra hungry).

But I always pick my squash when they're young and tender, knowing that that's when they're the best.

But I was a bit dismayed to see giant patty pan and zucchini offered up at our student farm's market this afternoon; maybe I missed the small ones earlier in the market, but why would anyone buy giant patty pan squash? They're really only good as a source of (uninteresting) fiber.

Clearly, we're missing the farm to table connection with some of these young students.

But maybe I need to get over and help them harvest earlier, too.

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Mystery squash seeds

CEN recently presented a squash mystery (see her comment) - a winter squash medley that's left to the buyer (that's us, to figure out). She sleuthed it out, and identified the butternut variety that she wanted. But I also poked around trying to figure it out too.

I don't know if this was the packet of seeds that she saw, but I happened on to it at a local big box store, and it caught my eye ( I always love a plant mystery).

Sorting them out, there were definitely 4 seed types, but not in the 25% each that were advertised on the packet.

After some time spent looking at squash seed characteristics and images, I figure that the large seeds on the upper left are the acorn squash (a C. pepo variety), the seeds on the right are the spaghetti squash (another C. pepo variety), the seeds on the lower left are the butternut squash (a C. moschata variety), and the two whitish seeds are C. maxima (the Lakota squash).

I could easily be wrong, but this was my best guess!

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A hoofed herbivore?

We saw evidence of deer last summer for the first time (AKA the summer of the woodchuck), but this summer, there's been munching on the Rudbeckias in the meadow, a phlox here and there, and the disappearance of these leaves is telling.

When I checked the squash yesterday morning, this is what I saw. They must be especially hungry to eat squash leaves, since they're so rough and hairy. Maybe their juiciness makes up for it?

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Mystery seed

My mystery summer squash is probably an interloper, based on the composition of the Summer Squash mix packet from Gourmet Seeds that I recently received (from a second order).

Even though the packet is labeled C. moschata, the variety list (Di Napoli, Romanesco, Rondi de Nice, Golden, and Bianco di Trieste) are largely C. pepo, I think. I recognize all of these, except for the 'Golden' in my satellite garden plants. But I think 'Golden' was replaced by a gourd, which is quite tasty when young, but is not happy in our summer heat (the leaves wilt dreadfully in the afternoon).

Happily, I've been harvesting the other squash varieties, too, having the best summer squash harvest I've ever had (aside from the tromboncino squash, which is flourishing).

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Young vegetables

One of the most delightful things about growing your own vegetables is that you can harvest lots of young fruits. 'Baby' squash are so amazingly delicious compared to their mature siblings, it hardly seems to be the same vegetable.

A trip to a local farmer's market this afternoon had me eyeing giant yellow squash and zucchini, with overly mature green beans as well. I did buy a largish heirloom eggplant that was delicious, to be fair, but wondered why they were picking such large fruits and not the smaller more desirable ones?

To me, the beauty of fresh veggies is to harvest them at their peak, when they're still tender and succulent, and eat them right away. Big is not better in terms of vegetables!

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Squash vines and blueberries

The rain this last week came just in time for the current crop of blueberries. The earlier berries were staying dry and sour from lack of water, then shriveling up. Blueberries (we grow rabbit-eye blueberries, Vaccinium asheii, in the Southern U.S.) are usually trouble-free, drought-tolerant, and attractive, too, in addition to producing lots of berries without any fuss.

The squash 'beds' are turning the satellite garden into a squash carpet, as they sprawl down the slope, and around the garden. They require frequent monitoring for errant direction (up neighboring shrubs, the tomato cages, bean trellises, etc.). The mystery squashes definitely need eating when they're quite small (and delicious), as they're tough-skinned and seedy if left to become large. And the tromboncino squashes are starting to produce more heavily -- hmm, perhaps I should have only planted one?

Since the woodchuck ate everything last summer but onions, garlic, and tomatoes (it seemed like), I think I thought I needed an insurance policy with extra seeds!

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A good soaking

All of the plants in our garden looked so much better this morning; we ended up with about 8/10 of an inch with more rain overnight.

It makes a huge difference to parched soil.

The vegetable garden beds are like sponges, rich with organic matter, and I think the bean plants in the satellite garden took advantage of the moisture to grow an inch or two.

Yard-long bean seedlings
The basil seedlings seemed much more robust, and the squash plants are thriving, too.

I've gotten more summer squash (yellow and scalloped) this year than I ever normally do -- maybe having the rough-stemmed C. moschata plants surrounding them is good.

This scallop squash was larger than I like to harvest them, but they're still wonderful. Fresh young squash hardly seems related to grocery store yellow squash and zucchini.

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Musings about vegetables

Before I started growing them myself, I used to think that onions and potatoes were about the same home-grown vs. buying them. Boy, was I wrong. Fresh onions and potatoes are nothing like their stored versions, fresh being deliciously succulent (full of water in their cells, I guess) vs being cured (or dried out). I harvested the last potato bed this afternoon, but plan on replanting the smallest potatoes as 'seeds' for potentially a fall harvest. I tried a fall planting last year, and had a nice (small) harvest.

Fresh-picked squash are another revelation; the eight-ball squash, green scalloped squash, and yellow squash that I harvested (and we ate) for dinner this evening, cooked with fresh garlic and onions, are hard to beat -- not a bit of toughness in the skins.

Something called 'mixed summer squash' that I sowed in early June is now started to produce fruit. I think they were Curcurbita moschata, normally grown as winter squash, but hopefully delicious as young fruits.

Rotations are so important, and I need to step up my record-keeping in addition to my 'online notes'. At the botanical garden, a couple of our raised beds in the Food for Thought are showing signs of lack of rotation and planting diversity -- squash bugs, wilt in some tomatoes (perhaps not resistant varieties), etc. And, there was another woodchuck boldly running up past the Ethnobotany Garden this morning. This, after relocating three of them already!

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Midsummer

Several good thunderstorms have helped the garden tremendously. We still need more, as we're behind over 10 inches this year already, but everything is looking green and lush. The view from my study window is striking right now- the purple phlox is looking great. The yellow on the right is the Threadleaf coreopis just starting to flower.






The society garlic (Tulberghia) in the garden shed border is flowering nicely, and the sage and anise hyssop that replaced the kale makes a nice contrast to the rest of the greys, greens, and purples.






The view from the sink at the kitchen window is nice right now; the beans and cucumbers on the trellises are growing well, and a couple of tomatoes are ripening.












The tromboncino squash rescued from the woodchucks in the satellite garden is attractive on the fence. Maybe it will produce some squash!

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