Today's Harvest: First Tomatoes

Today I harvest my first tomatoes of the season... some Sweet 100 Cherry tomatoes, 3 Early Girls, and 1 Juliet Roma Grape tomato.  While today's harvest was small, the tomato plants are loaded with green fruit, so I know I have a bountiful harvest coming my way.  This is extremely satisfying, especially considering the last two years I got zero fruit.  I guess patients is the name of the game when you are a gardener.

Harvest Totals (since April)

• 5 lbs Cherry Bell Radishes

• 3 lbs Giant Fordhook Swiss Chard

• 3 lb 5.5 oz Pic-N-Pic Summer Squash (5 squash)

• 5 lbs 6.3 oz Black Beauty Zucchini (3 squash)

• 13.7 oz Mammoth Melting Sugar Peas

• 5.1 oz Mucho Nacho Jumbo Jalapeno (6)

• 1 lb 0.2 oz Bush Blue Lake 274 Green Beans

• 5.3 oz Gypsy Sweet Peppers (2)

• 2.3 oz Sweet 100 Cherry Tomato

• 0.6 oz Juliet Roma Grape Tomato

• 11.3 oz Early Girl Tomato (3)

Pretty Things

Today, I stopped to smell the roses, or rather, the gladiolas, Black-Eyed Susans, and Black and Blue Salvia that were putting on a marvelous display in the garden.

I am a huge fan of bulbs, and the gladiolas I've planted over the last few years certainly do not disappoint.  I would love to plant several more varieties throughout my gardens.  This is my first year with the Black-Eyed Susan (or at least the first time one has bloomed for me), as well as with the Black and Blue Salvia.  I'm in love with all the beautiful flowers growing in the garden today.  I love the vibrant colors that summer brings!

Today's Harvest: XXL Zucchini

While investigating around the zucchini today, to check if it was on the mend from the squash vine borer incident, (side note, I actually found ANOTHER borer larvae in the zucchini plant and pried it out - hopefully the plant will now be on the mend, assuming that was the last larvae)... I found a GIGANTIC zucchini.  Somehow the zucchini had been hidden from site the last few weeks, and grew to State Fair Blue Ribbon - Winning proportions. The beast weighed in at over 3 pounds!

Also harvested today:  Bush Blue Lake 274 Green Beans, Mucho Nacho Jumbo Jalapeno, and Gypsy Sweet Pepper (the first of the year).

Once summer squash get this big, they aren't the tastiest.  They are still fine, but just lose a lot of tenderness and flavor.  It is best to use overgrown squash in recipes that call for other spices and flavors.  So, I made some zucchini bread!

This is my first time making zucchini bread, and I think it turned out pretty good.  Only trouble is, two loaves only used about 1/2 of my gigantic zucchini (3 cups shredded), so I still have plenty of the large squash left.  Looks like I'll need to make another batch!

Harvest Totals (since April)

• 5 lbs Cherry Bell Radishes

• 3 lbs Giant Fordhook Swiss Chard

• 3 lb 5.5 oz Pic-N-Pic Summer Squash (5 squash)

• 5 lbs 6.3 oz Black Beauty Zucchini (3 squash)

• 13.7 oz Mammoth Melting Sugar Peas

• 5.1 oz Mucho Nacho Jumbo Jalapeno (6)

• 1 lb 0.2 oz Bush Blue Lake 274 Green Beans
• 5.3 oz Gypsy Sweet Peppers (2)

Here's the recipe I used:

INGREDIENTS

• 2 eggs, beaten
• 1 1/3 cup sugar
• 2 teaspoons vanilla
• 3 cups grated fresh zucchini
• 2/3 cup melted unsalted butter
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• Pinch salt
• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
• 2 teaspoons cinnamon
• 1 cup chopped pecans or walnuts (optional)
• 1 cup dried cranberries or raisins (optional)

METHOD

1 Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C). Butter two 5 by 9 inch loaf pans.

2 In a large bowl, mix together the sugar, eggs, and vanilla. Stir in the grated zucchini and then the melted butter.

3 Sprinkle baking soda and salt over the mixture and stir it in. Add the flour, a third at a time, stirring after each incorporation. Sprinkle in the cinnamon and nutmeg over the batter and mix. Fold in the nuts and dried cranberries or raisins if using.

4 Divide the batter equally between the loaf pans. Bake for 55 minutes (check for doneness at 50 minutes) or until a wooden pick inserted in to the center comes out clean. Cool in pans for 10 minutes. Turn out onto wire racks to cool thoroughly.

End of Month View: May 2014

As we close out May and head into June, it is time to join Helen at The Patient Gardener, as well as other garden bloggers for the End of the Month View of the garden.

This month's view shows a lot of growth over the past several weeks, thanks to all the rain that Central Texas has gotten (you can even see the mini 'pond' we have in the park behind our house, thanks to all the runoff in the neighborhood).  It is great to be able to take a look back at how much the garden has grown since last month.

Veggie Beds
The vegetable beds have definitely seen the most growth.

The tomato bed is an absolute jungle.  Most of the tomato plants are close to 6 feet high.  Thank goodness I have my sturdy tomato cages to contain them.  Most have fruit, but nothing ripe for the harvest, yet.  I've started harvesting some peppers, and the eggplant fruits are starting to grow.

The squash bed is starting to overflow with vines.  A couple of the plants have succumbed to the squash vine borer and mildew.  I'm trying my best to combat both, but I foresee a new planting of squash in my future.

The peas are about finished, so I'll rip them out of Bed 3 soon to make room for my cucumbers, cantaloupe, watermelon and okra that is starting to grow.  Bed 4 (foreground of picture below) has some green beans that are producing well, and a second sowing of beans that should be producing in no time.  The collards and spinach that was planted earlier this spring hasn't done much, so I think I'll pull them soon to make room for something else that will be more fruitful.

Backyard Beds
The butterfly garden is full of zinnias, lantana, and some butterfly/hummingbird wildflower mix.

The bulb bed has a couple of gladiolas that have blossomed, as well as my Black-Eyed Susan, which was planted last year, but this is the first year it has bloomed.

Front Yard
All of the plants that were planted in the front beds last month after the new landscaping are doing well.  They are slowly filling out the space.  It is good to see the progress, if only a little bit.

You'll see our flags are up -  in honor of Memorial Day and will stay up through July for Independence Day.

Memorial Day Bouquet

My family came to visit over Memorial Day weekend.  My parents and youngest sister drove down from my hometown in Wisconsin, another sister flew in from Atlanta, and the other sister and her husband stopped in from Killeen.  I wanted to add some extra beauty to the house for their stay, so I looked to my backyard for some inspiration.  The zinnias are in full force, so I collected a nice assortment of the varieties that I have sprinkled in my veggie beds.  They made a pretty lovely bouquet for my family's stay.

Today's Harvest: First Green Beans

I grew and harvested my very first green beans this year, and they are DELICIOUS!  The first harvest was on May 18, and I've gotten a couple servings worth of beans each week since then.  I planted about 15 Bush Blue Lake 274 plants from seed directly into my 4th garden bed (the shadiest one - it gets about 3 hours of light in the morning, and maybe another hour as the sun is setting) back in early-mid April.  So far the plants are doing great.  I planted a purple bean variety a couple weeks ago, so I'll be interested to see if they fare as well.  I'll definitely be planting more green beans next year!

Harvest Totals (since April)

• 5 lbs Cherry Bell Radishes
• 3 lbs Giant Fordhook Swiss Chard
• 3 lb 5.5 oz Pic-N-Pic Summer Squash (5 squash)
• 2 lb 4.2 oz Black Beauty Zucchini (2 squash)
• 13.7 oz Mammoth Melting Sugar Peas
• 1.0 oz Mucho Nacho Jumbo Jalapeno
• 10.1 oz Bush Blue Lake 274 Green Beans

RED ALERT - Squash Vine Borer Invasion

The dreaded day has come.  My worst enemy (other than Bermuda Grass) has arrived - the abominable squash vine borer.  I first noticed some of my squash leaves starting to turn yellow - the first sign of trouble.  I then inspected the vines, and sure enough, there was the dreaded yellow "saw dust" - the sure sign that the squash vine borer larvae had burrowed into my beloved squash plants and was eating and killing it from the inside out.

I couldn't just let my squash plants die... they had been producing so well!  I just wasn't ready to throw in the towel.  Drastic times call for drastic measures - I had to perform surgery on my plants if I wanted them to have any chance of survival.

I grabbed a sharp knife and cut into the base of the vine, where the "saw dust" had accumulated - the most likely place where the larvae was hanging out.  I tried to keep the cut as small as possible, to limit the trauma to the plant, but large enough to see and dig out the larvae.

Sure enough, I saw the little bugger in there.  My first cut wasn't wide enough to dig him out, so I had to cut away a little more of the vine, but I finally got him out... SUCKER.

I then covered the base of the vine up with some dirt, hoping it will heal from the horrible incident.  I'm really hoping the plants bounce back.  I was able to extract larvae from my zucchini and acorn squash plants.  I'm pretty sure the borer got to some of the other squash as well, but I couldn't find the larvae, so it might have been too late.  I'll have to wait and see if my efforts did the trick.  I might end up ripping out some of the dying vines and try to get another planting in.  One thing is for sure, I'm going to use row covers next year to keep those nasty squash vine borer wasps off my plants.