Sounds delicious! I've only got lettuce, kale, and snap peas. Oh, and we've had some broccoli as well. I had thought that my asparagus starts were a bust, but five out of the 10 have poked up. I know they need a permanent bed so it looks pretty bare at the moment. Can't wait till three years from now, though!

My tomato plants suffered in our late May 18th snow, and they're not super robust. I replaced my pepper plants after the snow and the new ones are fat and happy. I'm still waiting for my berries and grapes to really take off.

Well, I have harvested.... nothing. Well, I didn't plant any early season stuff, so that makes sense right?

Sounds good Steve! Say, what does escarole and endive taste like exactly, I can't say I've ever actually eaten either....

Skybird once told us that she doesn't really like greens, they are bitter.

Like so many things she shares, she is probably right. But, coffee is bitter. I just finished my 4th cup of the day ... being a little self indulgent ... Within reason, I guess that I like "bitter."

One of the endive sisters is chicory. The roasted roots are used as a coffee substitute or additive. I like that.

You may see that lacy endive on a salad bar as a decorative element. Or, the waiter will have it on your plate. I ignore it as a food. Too bitter. Radicchio might be in your salad. It's another relative. I ignore it, also. Bitter!

I'm a little surprised that I have become such an eater of greens but I do have my limits. The only "green" I liked as a kid was baby beets. I've never been much of a salad person. But, I can still remember when I first had "wilted lettuce." Now, you have done it! And, lettuce is a little bitter, too.

Steve

Bitter CAN be good. But it can also be awful. I t tried cooking dandelion greens once and never again will I do such a thing.

However the brassica greens, like mustard and collards I adore. I'm elementary school I had a friend whos dad was from Georgia and every so often I would be invited for dinner when they would make a big "Southern style" supper. That's where I fell in love with greens.

Another little anecdote; I also remember when I was a kid and they would garnish plates with curly leave kale. I tried to eat it once and mom made me spit it out because she didn't know it was edible and thought it might make me sick.

Here's something I was eating today that wasn't even around when I was a kid: Snap Peas!

Picked a 48qt cooler full. There was also about 2gal of Snow Peas. Not many of those nor the Green Arrow Shell Peas in that bed. The Green Arrow are yet to come on.

Really, there shouldn't be so many snaps but it's been in the 90's (102ºf, this afternoon) and some of the second planting is ready with the first ... There is no holding them back!

Steve

The garlic's dug up, bundled, and hanging in the garage with a fan circulating the air. Pretty good harvest, though most of the heads are medium sized. A couple of the broccoli heads are too early and have even flowered, so they're a bust. The other varieties have not shown any sign of heading.

No harvests for me yet other than herbs and a few greens back in late May / early June. The orach was tasty and plentiful this year, and the few lettuce volunteers were beautifully red. The herbs are doing great - thyme, lovage, winter and summer savory, marjoram, mint, chives - we use them all. My cilantro has all gone to seed, so it's tie to plant another row.

This year skipped all the early and cool weather crops, other than a few red cabbage. My garden commitments have been escalating in recent years and it was time to take a step back and focus on what I love the most - tomatoes, peppers, tomatillos, and beans.

The tomato count is picking up - nothing ready to eat of course but my Cherokee Purples are already numbering in the dozens! It is looking to be a great tomato year!

Yesterday was the first harvest of the shell peas.

Took out one Yukon Gold potato plant. I had halfway vowed not to grow that variety again after it had performed poorly for a couple of seasons. But, the spuds are in a different garden this year and it's one of DW's favorites. Potatoes at about goose egg size - for some reason I'm never confident enough to dig new potatoes until they are larger than I prefer. Oh well. It's really time for me to begin taking out the spuds but I don't see any foliage that is dying. If the Yukons go first, they will have to do a little better than xxx large egg size but we will see. It was delightful to have the creamed peas and potatoes for dinner.

First zucchini were harvested yesterday, as well. Gorgeous things!

Steve

Two days between a 5 inch Gold Rush zucchini and it growing to 10 or 11 inches. And, there were a few others:

What is that, you say? There are 2 cucumbers?

Yes, there are! #7 and #8 Talladega for the 2017 season!

ت Steve

Ripe Tomatoes are not Just the Stuff of Dreams.

2 Yellow Jelly Beans. Turns out that they were more ripe than the 1 Sun Sugar. They are the only 2 tomato plants in my backyard ... and I couldn't recognize the measure of ripening シ. Turns out OK.

Steve

There has been a small handful of ripe cherry tomatoes from both the backyard and from the garden.

All the tomato plants look like they have been somewhat stressed by heat and wind. However, they are green and growing and soil moisture has been maintained throughout. There are a few green fruits of the larger varieties and maybe it helps to look again at this series of pictures of Big Beef tomatoes from flowering to (past) ripening. Remember! We are allowed to pick them and not just let them go in the interest of science! When I can pick mine, I'm not yet sure.

Timeline of a Tomato Truss

Steve

This is from a different garden than in past years. I was truly ready to give up on the Yukon Gold, altho they are DW's favorite. They had miserly production in the other garden where I grew them 3 or 4 times. Why they did much better out in the heavier gravel of the big veggie garden rather than in more fertile soil and pea gravel in the other garden, I don't know.

The Viking Purple has been the most productive variety several times. Admittedly, I haven't weighed anything this year - growing them in a 45' row instead of by the square foot, in a bed. Still, they have performed as usual, altho some have split. I don't know why that happened.

The Red La Soda look fine but are quite small tubers this season. Wow! different location and everything is a little different in the spud patch.

Lots more to bring home over the next few days. Bush bean seed was sown in place of these but I'd better stop doing that. There are plenty of beans planted as a 2nd crop and this is about 15 days after what I have thought as a safe date for beans. An early frost and there goes those things! I'm hoping to have some decent transplant weather real soon and will move some Asian amaranth plants out there.

Steve

Digit, I toiled all day in the fields today for this giant harvest! Good thing my garden is not responsible for curing world hunger. :-)

digit, I've never grown potatoes but wish I had the space... those look wonderful!

popmama, yum! We don't have any red tomatoes yet... all the small ones are yellow or orange, we only have big red tomatoes planted and they haven't started to ripen yet.

Our Sungold tomatoes have started producing... about 5 per day right now, they always ramp up slowly and then flood us with tomatoes later in summer. We're also getting about 1 cuke per day... just enough to eat as an afternoon snack!

Alyssa, I was about to agree with you when I remembered that DW found some cherry tomatoes in the garden. Went in to the kitchen to see what was in the tiny handful. Three red cherries! So, I ate them.

There hasn't been a full handful of the yellow cherries yet but PopMama and everyone should know that ripe July tomatoes from my garden are exceedingly rare!

I didn't grow potatoes for years! Then, I became curious about the new varieties ...

I'm like a puppy dog. First, I'm scared of anything new. Then, my curiosity gets the better of me. Room? How about giving up a square foot of garden for a pound of potatoes? I've wasted space growing them in the big veggie garden this year but I have gotten that production of 1#/sqft before, elsewhere.

Steve

Lol, all our garden space is filled with tomatoes and squash at the moment... we do have 3 rows of carrots, some of which are getting big enough to pull. Garden tomatoes are just so good, plus I am never strict enough when thinning the plants I start from seed... so I end up with more plants than I planned for and have to squeeze them in. I just can't bear to kill those seedlings that I put so much effort into starting! >.<

Maybe next year I will do a better job of sticking to a plan and plant some potatoes...

FINALLY getting some substantial fruit from the garden. It's actually about right on time, but I was so tired of waiting it feels like everything takes FOREVER. :)

The green zucchini below is a Costata Romanesco that weighs in right at 4 pounds and the yellow crookneck is around 12 oz. I harvested these on Sunday, 07/30/17:

The harvest last evening (07/31/17) included 78 jalapenos, 6 pounds of various tomatoes, 5 Yum Yum Gold peppers and 6 Lilac Bell peppers. I also harvested a handful of Dragon Tongue bush beans and a couple of raspberries and ground cherries which are SO delicious.

The smaller red tomatoes are all Krasnodar Titans; they do not get very large for me for some reason. The 4 larger tomatoes in the lower-right corner are all Bush Early Girl (the largest is actually two fruit fused together), upper-right is Hartsack Yellow (14 oz) and to the left of HY is Urbanite (12.5 oz).

The garden is really bursting with fun colors now and the annual harvesting of several tomatoes every few days should now last well into September. I see lots of fresh pico, salsa and canned crushed tomatoes in my near future!

Hall of Tomatoes:

Additional tomatoes:

Peppers:

Beans:

Yellow crookneck squash and romanesco zucchini:

Peach habanero is absolutely LOADED with peppers:

I believe "peach habanero" is an oxymoron.

Nice haul, nbm!

There you go, NBM!

I have only a report on lots of bush beans and a handful of pole beans. Still taking cabbage off but the Jersey Wakefield are now gone. Summer squash plants got a dose of fish emulsion and it's now or never for them. Plenty of zukes from spring planting, however. Cukes, too!

Tomato harvest could still be coming out of the garden in my shirt pocket. Sweet corn is sooo close.

Oh, and those La Soda potatoes ... 36# from 12' of the row. Since the rows are 30" apart in that area of the garden: 2.5x12= 30 square feet, 36/30= 1.2 pounds/square foot!

Steve

Thanks, Steve. Yes, I've been harvesting a handful of beans per day from two of the whiskey barrels. I find the Dragon Tongue to be the most productive of the bunch so far and they are beyond gorgeous. I am still waiting on the yardlong beans to get to size and the lima beans are just setting beans now. They take a while, but they look to produce well.

I'm a little jealous of the zukes you've been getting, Steve - I have only gotten what is in the photos above, though the crookneck has about 6 promising fruits coming on. I hope to get overloaded with them because I absolutely adore them. Actually, the Romanesco zucchini can take it's time if it wants since the fruit get so large - the one in the photo will easily be 3 meals. Cucumbers are not on my agenda for a few more seasons since they don't seem to like my local conditions very much. Tomatoes and peppers always do quite well for me.

I would love to try potatoes, though with my propensity for container gardening, I'm not sure they'd be worth the space. I know they can do well in large containers, but like carrots, I'm not so sure it's worth the long wait, watering and attention to only get enough for 2-3 meals..

I have peanuts. Maybe I'll try those in a whiskey barrel next season..

Zach, your squash and beans are beautiful. My squash/zucchini were a complete disaster last season and, although I have some beautiful crookneck coming on, I don't think this season will fare a whole lot better. I have only harvested 3 squash/zucchini so far with the crookneck having about 5 on it right now. If I get a dozen total, I will be happy. In 2015 I got 43 from 3 plants before August even started and I think I got about 50 in total. My peppers have produced well to this point, but the plants are not as robust as they have been in the past - I think it's time to replace the soil in the EBs I grow the peppers in.

Hang in there - we still have 6 weeks or so of decent warm weather growing and at least 10 weeks of cool season growing with the use of cold frames or the like. I almost never completely give up on the garden until the third week in October; sometimes I get herbs and greens into early November.

Im not doing any cool season plants. Tomatoes, peppers, squash, and beans is all I planted this year. "Remote gardening" (GOOPPing, as Steve calls it ;)) takes a level of time and commitment I really just am not able to provide in order to have the kind of success we would all like to see. The peppers look okay if significantly later than normal. The chilaca (the not dried version of pasilla) have suffered a lot of sunburn and the Tarahumara chile have some kind of virus but they seem to be prone to it since they seem to get it every year. It may be the seed, I like these peppers and mau have to try a new batch of seeds. The poblanos look wonderful and so do the serranos and jalapenos, but like I said, they seem to be coming in later than normal this year. I have a bhut that I grew for fun that is just now opening flowers.

All the peppers in ground don't look nearly as good though, the New Mexico and Pueblo chiles and the Ace bell and Carmen corno di toros are all very stunted. I never have had a lot of luck growing peppers in the ground though. MAYBE if we get the 6 weeks of good weather you promised I'll have enough for one batch of chile verde. Otherwise I'll be back down in Pueblo next month for the Chiles y Frijoles festival to stock up for winter.

Yesterday I had zucchini & chive scrambled eggs with hash browns mixed in. Tzatziki sauce over the top after it was cooked to give a Mediterranean flare.

Then I had zucchini pesto pizza for lunch. I cracked a few eggs over the top but that didn't really do anything special for it.

This morning I had zucchini pancakes with bananas and blueberries also mixed in. This is an almond flour mix so the result was very hearty. The mix calls for 5 eggs so it was also sort of like custard in the pancake

What are you doing with your zucchini this year? They are huge this year. I've never seen them get this big in CO.

mmmm, my summer squash are actually pretty small (the plants, the fruit are normal size) compared to when I have grown them in the past. I have had zucchini and yellow straight necks that virtually claimed the entire garden before. That's when I loose fruits and by the time I find them they are as big as a small child. No kidding, I have a picture somewhere of my little one (he was probably 2 at the time) standing next to one that was as tall as he was!

Hey! I've been trying to learn uses for Greek yogurt, mmmm12. (Tzatziki sauce, hmmmm? ;o). I have the last of the La Soda and Viking Purple potatoes out of the garden as of this morning for the hash browns.

Sugar Buns and Painted Hill corn matured at the same time and I had corn and Cascade Giant pole beans for an early dinner. I'm not sure how Botanical Interests is explaining Painted Hill's heirloom heritage. LINK

There are finally some decent looking Nozawana turnip greens to try. Having any plants live seems a near miracle! I just could not keep the flea beetles off them in the spring. Kitazawa claims that they are both cold and heat resistant LINK. They must be. This is the first time I can remember growing any kind of turnip in 40 years. I didn't really expect to use them as greens in August.

Steve

Zach, well mine aren't as big as a kid. I'd never be able to finish one. :-) Normally I get sort of medium sizes. But this year they are growing quite large. I may have planted a different variety this year. I'm hoping one of the plants in my garden is a pumpkin plant. I know we put one in but maybe it got weeded out. Hard to tell....

digit, I cheat and buy my tzatziki sauce from the grocery store. :-) I do like the way it can easily turn a plain dish into something fancy.

More tomatoes coming in now! Enjoying many fresh fruit just sliced and lightly salted/peppered, along with tons of pico/salsa, but my attention will soon shift to canning. I still have 17 pints of crushed maters from last season; hope to can another 30-40 pints this season. Should be doable if the weather behaves itself.

Basket below picked Sunday/Monday, August 6/7:

23oz Aussie (also shown in far upper-right of above photo):

The Aussie is the third largest I've ever grown. The heaviest was 1884 from 2016 weighing 26oz and I had a Stump of the World from 2015 that weighed 24oz. I think I have at least one or two more Aussies that are this size or larger and several Todd County Amish fruit are at least this large. I think I'll be besting my record soon. :) I'm not in any way growing for competition, except against myself, but I absolutely love growing me some big, meaty beefsteaks. I like smaller varieties, too, but these are so versatile in almost every way.

The yellow squash was only #2 on the season so far, but the plant is proving exceptionally healthy with another 8-10 setting now. The bees are very active for me this season and it appears they've all been properly pollinated. The Romanesco zucchini has only produced one large fruit, but the plant has set 4 more. VERY late, but better late than never. :) (Yellow (R), Romanesco (L)

Beans have been very productive, but are on hiatus right now for some reason - maybe the recent cool spell? I know they like warmth. Plants look good and I started several more containers of beans, so I hope to have a decent fall crop. Second photo below are Masai and Strike.

Peppers produced well to this point, but are not doing great now. Plants look good, but are not producing well. The exceptions are the poblanos, which are setting very nicely, and the habanero which must have 200 fruits on it. No current photos, but will take some this weekend.

Lastly, the raspberries are doing very well. They weren't looking too hot earlier in July, but they're thriving now. There are probably 12-15 canes lookin' like the ones below. They're delicious, but get MUCH sweeter once we get cooler nights in September. I'm no scientist, but I think the sugars must concentrate or something with cooler weather; the fruit become ultra sweet the cooler it gets. They also tolerate temps down to about 28F before suffering and halting production. That got me into early November last season.

Nice harvest from this past Saturday (08/12/17)!

The larger tomatoes closest to the camera are all between 15-20oz. The largest are a couple of Brandy Boys and a Heatherington Pink that are all just shy of 20oz. The large green tomatoes are ripe Green Moldovans - DELICIOUS, juicy tomatoes. I am surprised by how sweet they are.

I just love all the fun colors.

Sauce - 6 garlic cloves, half sweet yellow onion, 3 tablespoons olive oil, quart of crushed tomatoes from 2016's harvest, about 10 fresh tomatoes (mostly the Cream Sausage - pale yellow plum tomatoes in above photos) and a yellow crookneck squash. Little salt and pepper, oregano and basil and that's it. The yellow squash added a very nice depth of flavor negating the need for sugar to balance the acid. It's an awesome addition to sauce. I blended this down into a beautiful, thick sauce after simmering for 3 hours and then served over zoodles I made from a Romanesco zucchini harvested a couple weeks ago. Nice slice of buttered garlic bread and YUM!!

nbm, those all look delicious! How many plants do you have that produce that many tomatoes?

Sadly, I went out to harvest today only to find 3 big ripe tomatoes had been nibbled by some furry friend - my guess is a rat, although squirrels and raccoons are also suspect. Got a few slices out of two of the fruits, but the third one was a total loss. I picked another almost-ripe tomato that is not nibbled, so at least one will be safe. Darn varmints! We always lose one or two to the raccoons, but three in one day is a bit excessive. :(

Hi Alyssa!

I planted 24 tomato plants this season, but one moved on to tomato heaven before it really even got started, so I have 23 healthy plants. Out of those, about 16 have produced ripe fruit so far. Last year I had 28 plants that produced just shy of 400 pounds of tomatoes; it was a very productive season. This season is looking good, too, though many fruits are ripening later than usual. If I get 200 pounds total, I will be plenty happy!

I feel for gardeners who deal with all these pests! My parents have similar issues. I think because my garden is literally touching the back of my house and that most of it is covered in shade cloth, most pests stay away for fear of getting trapped inside. I sometimes find birds sneaking around, but have never had a damaged fruit from them (knock on wood). I often have issues with bunnies early in the season eating newly emerged seedlings, but I've managed to keep them out of my yard pretty well with all sorts of makeshift barriers.

Have you tried draping bird netting or shade cloth over your plants? I know many of those critters do not like walking on netting, etc. It's worked well for me in the past.

Wow, 23 plants! We currently have 12 in the garden and 3 more in pots close to the house, but half of them are cherry or plum sized, so not as impressive as the big fruit production. The garden has a netting fence around it to keep the deer out, but small critters can slip under the netting as it's not anchored to the ground. One side of the fence is wooden, so they can climb that one too. We're going to try some ammonia and/or mothballs as a repellent - it works for raccoons so hopefully it will work for rats!

Now I've got it!

Fresh sweet corn, ripe tomatoes, crisp cucumbers, aaaand

sweet melons!

We enjoyed the first Goddess cantaloupe (less netting) & Diplomat galia melons, yesterday.

Wow! These are delicious. Looks like it will be an okay melon year. Yay!

Steve

I think we may try to head down to Rocky Ford and get us some melons. I jave never had veryuch luck growing them here in Denver, but down in the "banana belt" they sure do a fine job of it.

Peppers on the other hand never give me too much trouble. Poblanos are not necessarily the most productive and the Tarahumara have disease issues so I picked a bunch of them green before I tossed the plants. But we still have something to show for our efforts. Rellenos smothered in chile verde? Yes please!

Hot peppers are now being harvested.

There have been a few bell and Italian sweets but even the fairly hot Garden Salsa and Jalapeño are not doing as well as the little blasting caps! Thai Hot, Super Chili, Thai Dragon

The peppers in the greenhouse are not as productive, either. They have cooked in there. Watering has kept them alive and they are considerably bigger plants than those outdoors. However ... I must be cooking the flowers.

Steve

I grow "early jalapeno" which produces a smaller pepper on smaller plants, so production suffers I think, but its not terrible. I think I will try one of the larger fruited varieties next time though just to see. Serranos are doing a tremendous job though, the problem is trying to figure out what to do with them all!

In my experience the hit peppers are more productive than the sweets and the smaller peppers are better than the big ones. I jave grown some, like habs, the serranos, lemon drop (which I think is the same as aji limon) and squash peppers that are absolutely loaded with hot little chiles while poblanos and New Mexicos are only so-so and bells are lucky to produce a handful of fruits. The Thai chillies I grow have super tiny peppers on very, very small plants but they produce like crazy. I think they are typically marketed as "ornamental" but they actually are pretty delicious and this year are going to be the main pepper in my hot sauce.

Once the temperature starts to even out your green housr peppers will start to kick in, hopefully you get a nice fall so they can produce something for you before cold becomes their enemy.

The jalapeño are the early variety this year. I'm not real impressed with them. This is the second time that I have grown the variety and I remember feeling that way before.

Usually, I have jalapeño m. That might be the "standard," don't know. What I would like to get away from is the tough skin on both of these. Of course, a little better production would be nice ...

The little hot Thais establish a presence in anything they go in. I can't really expect them to have more peppers since the plants are so small. One pepper per 3 leaves ... I really should count since it seems like the plants are giving it their all.

The peppers developing in the greenhouse if few are looking nice. That is kinda what I expected since tenderness seems to be characteristic of hothouse plants. I'll be able to put some in front of the camera soon as they are definitely ripening. Wonder how easy it will be to get in there for picking since the plants are big but there is little room between the center posts and the south wall. Usually, I feel this way but with the plants taking so much room, I'm a little claustrophobic! Watering is now throwing water over the center bench since getting in front of the bench while dragging the hose looks like a recipe for ripping peppers out of the ground.

Steve

Twisted-stem Mustard. Little Smokies at the bottom of the pot.

Well hey, it's on the way to late October and there have been like 12 mornings of frost.

Steve ズ ت

It has now been over a month since the first frost. Frost on many, many mornings! And yet, there have been only 2 mornings (I think) with the temperatures much down in the 20's. It was a quick change from summer heat to autumn chill but ..!.. it didn't go too far, too fast!

The tomatoes in the open garden are long dead but the two, Yellow Jelly Bean and Sun Sugar plants have survived. One night, I moved the Jelly Bean with the hand truck into the carport and later, back out. The other is very protected by the tree and greenhouse wall. The Jelly Bean later suffered a frost wilt but I soaked it down with water. Those leaves are yellow now but, at least, they aren't dead and black.

Terrible weather over the weekend with rain and high winds but still they survive and some of their fruits ripen. We had freshly picked cilantro and halved cherry tomatoes baked over salmon for Sunday dinner!

Steve

Still harvesting some mustard greens in the better sheltered, backyard beds.

As some of the greens are pulled, others are filling in - including some bok choy and choy sum!

It's just that there is daytime sun and, even with many light frosts, the cold nights never shut down these (welcome) greens. The snow later this week may not do that, either! I can't believe that I will see any real or imagined growth from these annual veggies. Of course, there are still 4 kale varieties out there, too. Aaand, some collards ..! Have no idea how much cold collards can take. For that matter, I don't know about Portuguese, Italian and Siberian kale ... although one could have a suspicion about the last.

Steve

Steve, your winter gardening never ceases to amaze me. Matbe with my new zone I can rival you, my biggest concern is the short days though. With significantly less sun, and you have it even worse way up there, 50-60 dtm cool season crops are bound to take weeks longer to mature, don't they?

Happy harvesting, right on through the snow and cold! Course it seems that someone came and harvested up all our friends here at RMG...

Harvested up all our friends ...

ت That's a way to think about it ت .

How about taking a Sociable Ramble through the Hills and Valleys?

We have had all these lovely warm-season garden harvests. Instead of a few crinkly greens, I'm thinking that steaming pots of winter soups and ...? Ya know, at the end of the trail. Sitting around in the warmth with our feet up. Thinking about next season ... um, next Spring and another garden. Looking out the window ...

Steve