Ladies and Gents, We Have a Melon!

After many weeks of blossom profusion, one tiny melon has finally decided to take shape. It's about the size of a small plum as of this afternoon. This variety is a petite muskmelon, so I'm thinking it won't exceed grapefruit dimensions, and it should have a "netted" exterior just like a cantelope. One can only hope!

The Philadelphia Fish peppers are also taking off. I might try my hand at pickling with these guys. 

I did some major chopping in the garden earlier this week. People don't realize how ruthless gardening can be sometimes. At a certain point, plants that aren't performing well, have already put on their big show, are crowding out new things, or are just overstaying their welcome must be pulled out. Bye bye sunflowers, long beans, and massively bushy marigolds. It's time to let the eggplant, hot peppers, and fall lettuce have a turn!

Last week I pulled in a huge long bean harvest and I think we've all grown a little tired of them. It seemed like the plants were producing tougher pods so the decision wasn't a hard one. The kale however is still leafing out like crazy with tender, flavorful foliage. How about those carrots? I'm not impressed with the flavor of the Amarillos despite their reliability. They are nowhere as sweet as the orange type. And the volunteer bottleneck tomatoes are as sweet as can be. I'm definitely letting a few fall into the bed for next year. 

This week I got two snow white, tender and delicious eggplant off a plant that's been overcrowded since June. I did most of my hacking in hopes that the plant will put on a couple more performances before it gets too cold. Speaking of cold, it's been getting pretty chilly at night here and I'm wondering if we're going to have an early fall. That won't be so great for the eggplant and peppers but the leafy stuff might love it. 

How My Garden Grew in June

Last week in the plot, getting bushy. 

At the beginning of June, the sunflowers were only hinting at the obstacles they would soon become. At this point I moved a few to the common beds and left the rest, hoping a few would be the offspring of the unusual red/brown variety I planted last year. 

A week later almost everything in the plot doubled in size. I dug up 16 marigold plants to transplant at my parents' home and could have taken out 2 dozen more. I have no recollection of spreading the seeds. I think they just fell from the plants at the end of last season. Marigolds thrive in my plot. 

The Ramapo tomato really became a monster by mid-June. The plant was covered with flowers and itty bitty tomatoes by this point. The miniature musk melon plants in the lower left of the plot also began to grow at this time.  Everything is green and happy so it's difficult to distinguish one thing from the next in the photo. 

This was the situation last week in the garden. I added some stakes in the rear of the plot for the Chinese yard long beans to climb and trained the rest to the sunflowers. I moved lettuce seedlings out from under the sunflower canopy. I trimmed sunflower leaves and staked the plants to open up some space around my cute little white eggplant seedling. And I moved several more marigolds to the common beds. 

And the garden cat just sat there. In case you didn't know, being really cute can be exhausting. 

Last Cukes of the Season

Last week we had just enough warm weather to encourage a few more cucumbers to fill out. For the most part though, the season is coming to a close at the Brunswick Street Community Garden in Jersey City. I tried sowing late season lettuce, but it hasn't taken off. We've had a very dry fall which probably isn't helping. 

Last week I picked some tomatoes that were just blushing and they ripened on my kitchen counter. I've found this to be one of the best ways to keep on top of the tomato harvest. As soon as the tomatoes begin showing color, I pick them and ripen them indoors, and they always turn out sweet and delicious, just as they would if they had fully ripened on the vine.  In fact, I am unable to tell the difference between tomatoes ripened this way and those ripened fully on the vine.  I think I read somewhere that the sweetness has been achieved at this point anyway. I also avoid the possibility of losing them to pests, garden thieves, and rot. 

Strangely, the warm spell last week seemed to revive my eggplant plants too. I'm patiently waiting for 4 eggplants to get up to size before frost hits. The plants put out so many flowers and the beginnings of fruits mid summer that I thought I was going to hit the jackpot.  Then we had cool weather and the plants stalled out. Nothing happened for a couple months and now they're back. I'll check on them tomorrow. It will be in the 70's through Thursday here in New Jersey. Hope they're ok with that. 

Lots of Veg

These are from the last few weeks. It's dropping into the 50s in the evenings here, so the plants are beginning to lose their green. There are at least a dozen more unripe tomatoes on the plants and a couple dozen carrots in the ground. They'll be fine but the baby eggplants and maturing cucumbers aren't going to be too happy. We'll see how they look later in the week. 

Harvest Photo Backlog!

Yellow tomatoes and more figs

yellow tomato, first eggplant (!), hot peppers, basil, plum tomato

cucumbers, tomatoes, hot pepper, carrots, lots o mint

Corn Serves as Praying Mantis Habitat

I may not get any ears from my Indian Corn crop, but at least I know it's going to good use.  The past few times I've visited the Brunswick Street Community Garden, I've spotted this tan fellow on my cornstalks. Why did I plant corn in such a tiny garden?  Last fall I bought a decorative trio of small Indian Corn ears at a farm stand in Lancaster, PA and saved them until this spring.  Each ear was a different mix of reds, yellows, browns, and oranges and I was curious to see what I would get from their offspring.  So I planted and they came up, survived the rainy-hot-rainy-hot cycle of summer weather, grew tassels, some toppled over, and most are developing very tiny ears.  I don't know if any of the ears have kernels on them; it looks like only one is plumping up.  My plan is to harvest them when the stalks begin to dry out.  Until then, the praying mantis gets to enjoy his own little vertical cathedral of maize.

A few more deep brown Earthwalker sunflowers are blooming on the single stalk that grew large enough to flower.  Both the bees and I love them.

Who's got eggplants?  I do!  One of my plants is nurturing at least a half dozen purple fruits.  They're a small variety, so we won't be overwhelmed by the harvest.  As you can see, the plant foliage is under siege by flea beetles, who are making Alpine Lace out of the leaves.  I diligently squish any that I see when I water but it seems to be a relentless assault.  Regardless, the plant is doing a fine job of flowering and holding on to the fruit.

Oddities from the Garden

Most of the carrots I grow wind up looking like pants or ginger roots and I've definitely seen a few tomatoes from the garden who could be called Pinnochian.  Fruits and veg in nature are rarely the uniform beauts you buy at Whole Foods.  The weirdos have all been winnowed out by the time they hit the markets.

Artist Uli Westphal has a lovely series of photos documenting all the unusual shapes that produce can grow into if allowed.

The Mutato Project is interesting for anyone with an artistic eye or who has gardened, but also strikes a chord with anyone who has shopped for fresh produce.

Eggplants

I picked the last two eggplants today in the garden. I also grabbed a handful of escarole and beet greens for a salad and noticed that I have some lettuce and spinach sprouting. I'm hoping some of that matures before frost. There isn't any frost in the forecast this week but we will be getting temperatures in the forties at night. It's time to start thinking about cleaning out the plot, adding compost, and planting garlic bulbs for next year.

Collecting Pumpkins and Stretching the Harvest

Three additional pumpkins were acquired at a coastal Jersey farm last weekend.

Mao Mao inspected the minis as soon as they arrived.

Late ripening Mortgage Lifters are resisting late season blight and slowly turning pink in the garden.

There are a couple inch long cucumbers forming on these vines but they'll probably need some doomsday-type global warming for any chance of maturation.

I do think we'll have one last eggplant harvest this season. And yes, we still have plenty of hot peppers. See them hanging out in the background?

Green and Purple Things

Our once beautiful pony has been totaled so the search is on for an equally awesome ride. Is another Legend Lime in our future? It's too soon to say.

Eggplant #2 was in the cute purple and white stage last Friday.

This morning the little guy was considerably larger and more purple.

Eggplants

Getting Bigger

Eggplant #2 and Future Eggplant

Some Things are Doing Pretty Darn Well

While the tomato plants are yellowing and the squash plant might finally have had enough of my poking around in its vine, other members of my little garden community are beating the heat, the bugs, and the occasional dry spells. You could even say that two plants in particular are thriving.

One of many baby eggplants hangs from my little eggplant tree.

A very happy hot pepper plant might overwhelm us with spicy fruit.

Happy Garden

Earlier in the season, I was a little annoyed at these sunflowers for blocking the early morning light needed by my Brown Berry tomato plant. When they finally bloomed I forgave them. They've seduced me with their rich red colors. And anyway, the Brown Berries are a little funky tasting.

Things are finally perking up in the plot. We've had on and off soaking rains for the past few days and the plants are all a little greener and putting out new growth in most cases. The eggplant is finally starting to branch out and at least two blossoms are starting to form.

The compost squash has grown large enough to begin fruiting. We'll see if any of the latest blossoms turn into mystery squashes. I say mystery because they are notorious open pollinators. One never knows what other squash blossoms may have been visited by the bee who made this one possible. It could be some crazy hybrid decorative gourd. I'm crossing my fingers for something edible.

The garden hot pepper is doing just fine. I'm waiting for these to ripen on the vine and may use them for our famous summertime treat: Asian Gazpacho!

These two are always entertaining to watch while watering and weeding in the garden. Sometimes they overwhelm me with cuteness.

Make Way for Eggplants

After spending a long holiday weekend at the Bay, the garden was in pretty sad shape when I returned. I had asked several people to water while I was away but who knows if anyone got around to it. Temperatures in the low 100's didn't help either. Most of the bean foliage was fried, the cucumbers shriveled beyond recognition, and the remaining beets wilted to a stringy pink mess.

The situation forced me to make some tough decisions about the beans. We had already eaten quite a few, they were taking up most of the plot, and at this point they looked horrible. So into the compost they went. I spared two plants off to the left. After mulching and giving everything a loooong drink, the plot looked a little more respectable. I trimmed off the dead beet greens and pulled a few of the larger ones for dinner. I also planted three salvia plants between the marigolds to the right side of the plot and added two musk melon plants by the carrots. I put in two escarole plants behind the large marigold row in the front hoping to take advantage of mid-day shade. All of these plants were abandoned and left to die on the picnic table in the garden. I was happy to try some new things.

My hope is that with the beans gone, the eggplant will get more light, water, and soil and grow big and strong and make a huge crop of eggplants. I would settle for just one eggplant. So far the blossoms have all fallen or been knocked off before anything has had a chance to happen.

The pepper seems totally fine. It's the healthiest in the plot and making a few new peppers which I plan to leave on the plant until they ripen to red.

Yesterday the first red sunflower began to open. You can see the big yellow guys in the background already drying out post bloom and preparing their tasty seed crop. This has all happened much earlier this year. I may be pulling the sunflowers in August at this rate.

Today the first red sunflower bloomed. I noticed it is still a favorite to the local honeybee population.

Oh You Pretty Things

My first hot pepper is growing fast. I checked back in the posts and found that this guy is a variety of Poblano. The plant seems happy: it's growing in a compact manner and putting out many flowers. Another baby pepper has started to grow. At home we're still wondering if we'll be able to handle the spicy bounty.

The eggplant has its first lovely lavender flower. There are some other eggplants in the garden and I'm wondering if they're open pollinators. Will this one become my first homegrown eggplant or will I need to wait for flower #2?

Beans, carrots, lettuce, beets, and beet greens are on the menu for tonight. Although the lettuce is on its way out, the beans, carrots, and beets are coming into high season. I pulled these baby beets to make some more room for a few cucumber, summer and winter squash plants that are slooooooowly growing under the trellis. I also made the difficult decision to pull three bush bean plants to allow more sun to reach the squash. It was hard to do (especially with so many blossoms on the bean plants) but it will be worth it in the end if I can manage to grow even one squash! The pulled plants went right into the compost so at least all was not lost.

A vacant lot on 6th street between Coles and Monmouth made my day. Someone planted wildflowers and they are absolutely thriving. The red, pink, and white poppies are a beautiful and happy sight to see on my walk to the garden. A+ for this guerrilla gardening effort.

I stopped again on my way home to admire the festive display. The flowers seem to cancel out all the urban waste that surrounds them. I can't get over how pretty this is!