The squashes, especially, seem to be putting on another flush of growth. The butternuts almost completely succumbed to powdery mildew, but I saw this beauty the other morning.
I originally scoffed at the name of this zucchini. The variety is "Cute Fancy," and I thought, "Ha! No such thing. . ." but it really is a nice variety. Not a whisper of powdery mildew, well-behaved light green fruit, and nice mild flavor. It, also, is flushing a new crop.
I'll have more Triamble if the plant fights off the latest powdery mildew attack. I had hoped the cooler weather will help, and we'll see.
We're eating apples off of the espaliered trees daily. I saw another fireblight branch that I'm going to have to clip off, so grafting really may be on the agenda. The Braeburns and the Fujis are especially good.
The row of apples is really partially a trellis for squash.
That broadcast-seeded kale bed?
As I was harvesting some baby kale for dinner, leaving some big spaces for the remainder to grow into, I discovered that my seed wasn't quite pure:
There's Tat Soi among that kale. Good thing I love both greens and they have similar cultivation requirements. This year, I'll bag the seedheads.
The Purple Cherokee are looking interesting:
I can't wait to see this one all ripened up.
All but one bed are built, but not all are full. Holiday weekends are good for big projects.
We had lots of help with the most exciting (to me) big work effort.
A few more joints to glue and trenches to dig and backfill, and the fall garden will have -- WATER!! Eventually we'll run it off of a pressure pump from a large rainwater tank, but this year I'll use house water just to get it going. Greywater will go to the fruit trees and the front garden. So exciting.
8 comments:
Hooray for water! Hand-watering gardens is a task I can't stand. Well, I actually enjoy it once I'm out there, but I hate the responsibility of *needing* to go out there. I'd rather harvest! And deadhead!
Speaking of which, I really ought to go water my container plants. Right now.
A squash the resists powdery mildew! Gotta have it.
And water, glorious water. I'll be creating new beds very soon and putting in drip. It looks like you have a nice set up.
irrigation! That's pretty sweet! You will love the Purple Cherokee. They are always the best producer in my garden and best tasting too.
The new beds and irrigation system look great! Good work.
If Dan will part with some Cherokee Purple seed, I plan to try some of them next year based on everyone's good recommendations.
I have to agree with Dan, Purple Cherokee and Black krim are two of my favorite dark tomatoes...so good.
What a fancy setup you are making for your raised beds, I love it!
Oh, and thanks to your information regarding fireblight in an earlier post I was able to diagnose two of our newest pear trees with it. One of them is off to pear heaven and the other cut back to nothing but still alive.
Have fun with the new garden area!
Patricia, I'm with you. I enjoy it but I'm convinced it isn't really in the garden's best interest. I'd probably go out and enjoy anyhow without it, and hopefully catch problems early that way. Container plants are another issue altogether. We've made it a practice to dump "extra" kitchen water on the porch catnip, to the delight of neighborhood felines, but that's it.
Jackie, I bought them as plants from the local Plowshares nursery. They must be available from seed. They were not, however, near any of the plants besieged with PM this year, so no promises. I'm looking forward to our fancy new system.
Dan, thanks. I haven't actually tasted any of the Cherokee Purple yet. . . just looked at 'em. If they're good I think I still have lots of seed. In only three short months it will be tomato-starting time here!
KitsapFG, thanks. It's easy to dig ditches in sand.
Mr. H., I'm so sorry you had fireblight and so glad you caught it. It's nasty stuff. I need to get out and trim again. Sigh.
Drip is really the only way to go here. I love my inline drip emitters, except for the fact that I can only get them mailorder. I buy 500' at a time.
Powdery mildew appears out of NOWHERE in my garden. So if you have a squash that hasn't been infected by it by this time of year than that baby is resistant in a big way.
How wonderful to have all those beds. I forsee quite a variety of veggies in your future!
BTW, the caper berries on my pink flowering capers are starting to ripen, would you like to try some of those seeds?
One more thing, Cherokee Purple has done quite well for me in the past, very productive and tasty, but my all time favorites for flavor are still Aunt Ruby's German Green and Paul Robeson. Just starting to ripen! Hmm, maybe I'll have to try the Cherokees again next year.
Michelle, I know. I have a fantasy of figuring out some perfect, professional irrigation set up -- there's a local woman who has one to die for -- but my brain can only work as far as soak hoses. I think that we can install a general timer at least, and manually control each bed (that's why we put the ball valves at each one).
I hope this plus some soil work, and I'm still working a lot, helps yields. I'm having to think carefully about what I want to do and rotations.
I'd love some pink caper seeds -- thanks!! I'll email you my address.
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