Closing Fast on the First Tomatoes and Zucchini

Here's the first tomato turning red. There are a couple turning already, they're all Fourth of July Hybrid.

And the first Black Beauty Zucchini.

One heck of an ugly Cherokee Purple tomato.

Also got a little green pepper forming. About the size of a quarter.

And finally a view of the cucumbers, peas, and tomatoes in the background.

Hail!

Tragedy! Hail cut a bloody (ok, sappy??) swath through our tomatoes. Also messed up the barley pretty bad, although I think that was more the high winds. I'm not even sure of the full extent at this point, I've cut off some seriously broken branches, but I'm sure I'll find a lot more damage as other broken branches die off.

Pepper Action

First pepper looking good. Didn't know what kind it was when it first poked out, but process of elimination suggests it's neither a jalapeno nor a bell pepper. So this is our first Hungarian Hot Wax Pepper. This is four days of growth. Not sure exactly when to pick, will have to do a little research.

We've had two cukes so far, and another few coming along. Had a few peas from the late pea planting as well. No tomatoes yet. Maybe I'm imagining it, but it seems like some of the tomatoes are turning slightly yellower...

Made a pilgrimmage to a friend's garden. I've had the opportunity to see his backyard go from lawn to tomatoes, very nice job. He's done raised beds with 2x6's (2x8s??) and it looks really nice. I like his tomato support solution - some 2x4s driven into the ground and twine hanging down in a V shape. He wraps the twine around the plants and they seem very happy. It also has the benefit of not looking awful like my support system does. I think next year I will build something out of pvc and paint it dark green so it's not quite so hideous. The other benefit being it'll last a long while. My two year old raised beds are swarming with termites, so wood (non-pressure treated) doesn't really seem to be an option. Anyway, this friend's zucchini is twice the size of ours, and he's got zucchini already. I'm so jealous! Next year I'm going to start the zucchini earlier. I don't know how far behind we are, but he did say the growth in the last week was explosive. I guess ours has been growing pretty well too, so maybe zucchini is not too far off for us. His tomatoes looked miserable when he first planted them. I though he was going to lose most of them. But they've all come back big time. In fact, they seem maybe just a little behind ours, which had a great start. 

Coming right along...

We enjoyed the first cucumber, and there's another ready to eat shortly. The rest are rather teensy at the moment though.

The first pepper is peeking up.

Zucchini looking good, though no flowers yet.

Tomatoes, tomatoes, everywhere.

Peas tapering off

The peas are tapering off. We picked 11 oz today and popped them in the freezer. The Sugar Snap Sprint peas look like they may have a few more flowers on them, the regular Sugar Snap are flowerless.

I should do a tomato count. I'm thinking at least 20 at the moment, and lots more on the way. [ed. - census of all 31 plants revealed 61 tomatoes, 124 flowers total on the regular varieties, 15 tomatoes, 27 flowers on the cherry varieties. Counted even pea-sized tomatoes and any flower where I could see yellow. Overwhelming leader was one fourth of july hybrid with 15 tomatoes and 18 flowers. This is a lower limit, I didn't move foliage to search - MC]

Peppers are starting to flower.

Cukes are looking good, seeing a few sub-inch cukes already.

Beans are up and growing like weeds. Corn is growing well, winter squash us up (Hubbard). A bunch of zucchini is on the grow - some planted a while back indoors, some seeded directly not long ago. The big corn patch is now covered with corn plants an inch or two high. Planted half of it at 6 inch spacing, half at 1 foot spacing. We may have a lot of corn. The upside down tomatoes are looking decent, but the rightside up ones are looking better.

Finally the barley is looking awful, but we've got some seed showing.

Update - Dug up a nice strip of earth just outside the north side of the fence and planted 11 Northern Pickling Cucumbers. Be nice if the deer leave them alone.

Peatopia

1 lb, 14 oz of peas picked today. That brings the grand total to 3 lbs, 3 oz. Half a pound is good for a meal for us. We popped 1 pound of them in the freezer for later. Jill suggested Thanksgiving, I'm not sure they'll still be tasty by then.

The garlic harvest is in and slowly drying. This is just the storebought softneck garlic crop. The hardneck has a ways to go. We gave away a few and ate a few already. I think we'll plant some more next year.

Tomatoes are growing. Not too big yet.

More Peas

Pulled another half pound of peas off the vines. Still more peas maturing and some flowers. Up to 1.3 lbs total so far. They've been good.

Added in 8 zucchini hills just outside the fence. Deer never seemed to touch the zucchini. Going to add a bunch of cuke hills behind the fence so they don't block the sun.

Lots of Peas

Harvested a third of a pound of peas Sunday for guests to sample. Then another half pound today which we devoured eagerly.

Oh, did I mention the upside down tomatoes? I've been moderately obsessed with upside down tomatoes, so I built a structure out of 4" x 4" pressure treated beams to hang them from. Here's what they look like.

They seem to be doing well.

Pulled a garlic over the weekend, bulb looked great, but I'll let the rest grow a bit more.

Potato flowers.