Sandies Garden in August

My Niece, The Tomato Tester

I stopped by Sandy & Davies house to return a hydraulic jack I had borrowed, and just like any other time I visit, I had to check out their garden. My niece led the way into the tomato patch, where she sampled, and declared ready, many of the cherry tomatoes that were growing.

Cherry Tomatoes

I usually plant a few Red Alert cherry tomatoes in my garden, simply because they ripen sooner then the larger slicing tomatoes. Sandy is far more devoted to the cherries then I, and she even visited a commercial greenhouse to purchase these plants ( I usually start of all the tomatoes and peppers for the whole family in my greenhouse).

Waltham Butternut

I planted Waltham Butternut squash hoping to repeat the success I had last year, but the plants are doing poorly. Sandy’s plants are doing great though, and I often find myself wondering why our two gardens behave so much differently. I guess it’s got a lot to do with water and soil. My garden is sometimes too well drained, but Sandy’s garden tends to retain a good amount of moisture. Her garden also enjoys some shade from a row of trees nearby, where my garden is exposed to the direct sun like an ant in the Sahara desert.

Swiss Chard - Bright Lights

The Swiss Chard in both gardens are doing great. The colors alone are worth planting for, but having this plant be edible, and good for you is an extra bonus.

Celery

I couldn’t believe how well the celery plants were doing. These are the same tiny seeds that grew so slowly after I planted them 11 weeks before the last frost. They are nearly as tall as the zucchini plants in the row beside them, and it’s pretty amazing to see one of the harder to grow plants do well. I still need to work on my gardening skills with eggplant, kohlrabi, and pak choi, but I’m getting better every year.

Squash Line-up

Winter Squash

It’s that time of year again, time to wonder just what we’ve grown. I can identify the first two from the left, as Baby Blue Hubbard, and Acorn Squash. I’m not sure what the third one is, but the forth is Waltham Butternut, and the Fifth is Spaghetti Squash. So, I’ve got about half of their names, but they are all Winter Squash, which should keep well into the winter, if stored properly. On a humorous note, I’ve found my sprinkler which was buried in a sea of green for so long.

Pile of Squash

Since the plants have started to die, we decided to pile up the squash so that it could be more easily managed. There are two piles shown, one of which will become food for my pig: Babe. These squashes have small bite marks, which I’m told are the remnants of curious chipmunks.  The others I’ve loaded into the trunk of my car and transported to my Mother’s house, as she has more room for storing this motley mix. I had nearly a trunk load of squash, and was quite proud of the bounty.

Zen Harvest

Ying Yang Beans

Here are some of the beans I harvested today. They are dry beans, with a distinctive Ying – Yang looking pattern on the bean itself. I planted these in the hopes of getting my neices excited about the garden, and they have harvested a bunch even before I had. The bean pod looks like any other string bean, green in color, yellowing when they are ripe.

Winter Squashes, and Corn

At the end of the garden, we’ve planted Winter Squashes of many varieties. When the plants first started growing from seed, they were way behind schedule, so I watered them daily, and also side dressed them with rabbit manure. After a few days of slow growth, I added goat manure on top of the already potent rabbit dung. I would soak the plants till water began pooling, and with a few degress of slope, it took a while to completely douse them. The sun co-operated very nicely in those days, and the heat really got those little plants growing. I took the tripod out to the garden, and took this picture. Keep in mind the tripod is nearly four feet tall. Those little plants have turned into winter squash warriors with huge green leaves. They grew so fast that I lost my sprinkler under the leaves, and there is no way to walk through the rows between plant varieties.