Vegetable Gardening

[smilingcat]

Darn it, I've got my first ball bat of the season... a zucchini that was hiding under a big leaf when I looked yesterday.

Spent the morning trying to stay ahead of the squash bugs and vine borers.

ROFLOL... maybe trying your hand at making zucchini pickle.

[GLC1968]

Yeah - we've had quite a few zucchini bats this year already! They shred nicely and still make tasty zucchini bread.

I've made three different types of zucchini bread and one kind of zucchini cookie, tons of zucchini chips in the dehydrator, I've shredded and diced and dehydrated piles and piles of zucchini and we are grilling and roasting it to eat with every meal. It gets sauteed and put in eggs, and shredded and tossed in salads. We also feed it as treats to the dogs and the goats. I swear that if I start to sprout a striped green skin, I'll post a picture.

I harvested our first cuke yesterday...and our first tomato. And one of our heirloom varieties (tomatoes) has an issue. All of the fruits are getting blossom end rot. I can't figure it out as all the other varieties are doing fine.

And seriously, what is up with the snow peas? Will they EVER stop producing? The plants basically look dead and yet every day we harvest more. You'd think that 107F weather would put an end to it, but apparently not!

[OakLeaf]

Hmmmm. If it's just the one variety and all your plants are getting the same amount of water, maybe it has greater calcium needs than the other tomatoes? Maybe try top dressing with a little bone meal?

I'm not having much success controlling whatever disease my tomatoes have. I've got a couple more tricks up my sleeve for tomorrow after it stops raining, but right now it doesn't look good.

[GLC1968]

You know, that's a really good idea! I'd ruled out a calcium problem because the other varieties were fine, but why it never occurred to me that they may have different needs is beyond me! Duh! Would eggshells work, you think? Or I *may* have some blood & bone meal left from last year... Thanks for the ideas!

[OakLeaf]

I got curious and started googling the extension services.

They recommend a foliar spray of calcium chloride to control blossom end rot in established plants. I used to use the stuff to curdle tofu, but there are issues if too much of it gets into the soil and its use in "organic" agriculture is iffy (safest and most accepted in just that application, though).

Maybe try whirling some eggshells and water in the blender to use as a foliar spray? Just a thought.

Another thing I read is that plants that have a lot of fast, leafy growth are more susceptible to blossom end rot, because nitrogen is involved as well. Maybe that's why your one variety is affected?

[GLC1968]

Yeah, I thought about the nitrogen issue, too. We have high nitrogen levels in some of our soil due to the chicken coop - but that's mostly the 'row garden' area and most of the plants that have the problem are in the boxes (which is fairly controlled as these particular boxes are new this year). We do have one plant of this same variety in the row area, but it looks just like the rest of the diseased ones (no better or worse).

I'll try the eggshell spray on one plant - it probably can't hurt, right? If it works, I can do more. All of the plants have a new crop of tiny tomatoes, so hopefully if I treat them soon enough, these will develop well. I've been trying to pull off all the end rot ones right away so that the plant doesn't waste any energy on them. Not sure if that matters or not, but that's my brains' logic for you!

[OakLeaf]

Not sure if that matters or not, but that's my brains' logic for you!

http://www.ces.ncsu.edu/depts/pp/not...otes/vg19.htm:

Removing affected fruits when symptoms are first observed may be worthwhile for subsequent development of other fruit on the plant. This is particularly recommended for tomatoes.

[spokewench]

Here is a whole sink full of rainbow chard that I harvested this morning with a couple of zucchinis.

Oh, boy can't wait for that Italian style soup tonight!

[spokewench]

And, here is the result. One bag of stems, two great huge stuffed bags of chard leaves.

[BleeckerSt_Girl]

Wow, a whole sink full!
So now tell us what you are going to do with the bags of leaves and stems...

The sun is finally out, I went for a nice 25 mile bike ride already...
Now Im going out to do some garden tending right now!

[spokewench]

Well, for starters, I will make a soup. Saute onions, carrots, some of the stalks, garlic; add a little bacon and cook a bit; add stock, cannellini beans, lots of chard leaves, a can of diced tomatoes or fresh if I have them, a small rind from my parmesan cheese, some small pasta at the end yummy soup!

[OakLeaf]

Beautiful chard!

Wow, you have cannellini already? Or are you talking about dried?

Rabbits, or somebody, have been into mine - I took the opportunity to look inside a chewed-up pod, and the bean kernels are still really tiny, smaller than the ones in a lot of my green beans even (planted at the same time).

But I pulled a carrot yesterday just to thin the row a little, and it came out 6" long! I wasn't expecting that. Yummy.

[BleeckerSt_Girl]

Spoke- that sounds like good soup. I especially like the parmesan part.
I like to quickly stir fry my swiss chard, like I also do with my bok choy I am getting now too from the garden.
Everything in the new garden is of course still only 2-3 inches tall, and hopefully I will start getting the first lettuces, spinach, & radishes to eat from it in a few more weeks.
Meanwhile, the small old garden is putting out some nice things to eat.
At the end of autumn when the plants there have become exhausted, I might hoe it all up, fertilize it again, and plant some lettuce and spinach there for late autumn/early winter growing, since with the existing little mesh fence I could easily throw some clear plastic up and create a mini greenhouse of sorts as an experiment. In the Spring that whole little garden will be dug up and planted over to raspberries- it's a great spot for it!

[Selkie]

GLC - Would you mind sharing your zucchini bread and zucchini cookie recipes, please? I saw those pictures of your crop! WOW. By the way, I still love that pumpkin bread of yours (you posted the recipe last fall, I believe).

No zucchini in our small garden but our tomato plants are going gangbusters. I planted heirloom varieties, which I got a a "hoity toity" mail order place. Worth the money. One plant is producing purple ones, that are just now ripening. On my way in the house after work, I stop by, grab some ripe tomatoes and have a treat before I head off to the pool for a swim.

Our pepper plants got big but no peppers. Odd. Maybe due to lack of pollination?

[OakLeaf]

Peppers are self-pollinating.

I'd guess soil nutrients, with weather a close second. Did you have blossoms? Did they turn into tiny peppers and then fall off, or wither before they even started to look like peppers?