While much of the country has been struggling to stay cool in record-breaking heat, this is our second summer in a row with unseasonably cool temperatures, and so far at least, the edible garden seems to be more or less on par with where it was last year.
The July garden, with towering tomatoes and tomatillos is starting to look like a jungle!
Unfortunately this means that yet again, the tomatoes seem to be slow. Only the last week or so have we begun to see much fruit set on the tomato plants. Although we’ve seen numerous blooms for weeks now, low overnight temperatures have resulted in a lack of fruit set.
The tomatoes have been blooming, but struggling to set fruit this summer
However, things are starting to look up.
Like last year, our Black Pear variety was the first to set much fruit, but we now are starting to see some tomatoes forming on Pantano Romanesco…
Pantano Romanesco is a new variety here this year. These ribbed tomatoes hopefully will turn a rich red in the coming weeks.
…Black Cherry…
Black Cherry Tomato
…San Marzano…
The paste tomato San Marzano (Lungo 2) is setting fruit, although Federle, so far, is not
…and have even tasted our first Stupice tomato of the season, which has started to ripen even before the cherry tomatoes.
Stupice is an early cool-season tomato, and so far this summer, the only one to ripen
The peppers are a mixed lot at the moment, with some setting fruit and others only just starting to form. Thus far our Tolli’s Sweet Italian has come roaring out of the gate and seems to be setting the most fruit.
Tolli's Sweet Italian is a red pepper that doesn't seem to be slowed down too much with the cool weather
Purple beauty is forming beautiful rich purple-colored fruits.
The Purple Beauty peppers are just starting to form rich dark-colored fruits
Of the hot peppers, the Jalapeños seems a little behind, but the Bulgarian Carrot peppers seem to be setting well.
Bulgarian Carrot
We’re growing tomatillos for the first time here this year, and they’ve been amazing so far. The plants are over 6 feet tall, and have been producing a profusion of blossoms for weeks, which the bees simply go crazy for.
The bees welcome the addition of Tomatillo Verde's beautiful blooms to the vegetable garden
As such, they’re also setting an amazing amount of fruit! Hopefully in the next few weeks we can begin to harvest them, and I see at least a day, or two, or three, coming up in the kitchen, canning an absurd amount of roasted tomatillo salsa!
We expect to be drowning in tomatillos very soon!
Potatoes have also done tremendously well this season. There truly is nothing like a freshly harvested new potato, with it’s sweet flavor, and buttery texture. So far we’ve harvested our favorite Rose Finn Apple fingerlings, some beautiful and flavorful German Butterballs…
German Butterball potatoes
…and our new favorite blue potato, Purple Majesty. Last year we grew a variety called ‘All Blue’, but the yields from Purple Majesty far surpassed All Blue, the color is stunning, and the potatoes slightly larger overall. A definite hit, and we will be growing these again!
Purple Majesty was our highest yielding potato this season!
As for the squash…oh the squash. On the upside, unlike last year, our addition of four bee hives in the gardens has meant that hand-pollinating squash is now a thing of the past!
Our bee hives this year have made a noticeable difference in the squash patch
Early each morning, while checking for vole damage, the entire squash patch is buzzing with honey bees, sometimes 4 or 5 bees are sharing a flower at a time.
A pollen-coated honey bee on a squash bloom
Squash blossoms produce lots of nectar, which clearly entices the bees, who quickly become enveloped in pollen as they travel from flower to flower, pollinating as they go.
Most flowers in the early morning contain at least two bees each!
Not having to hand-pollinate the blooms this year has saved us a lot of time in the garden, and as a result we’ve been harvesting ample summer squash for the past few weeks. Although we’ve had some minor losses due to our vole problem this season, we’ve still had plenty of Black Beauty, Cocozelle, and Early Prolific Straight summer squash to go around. This weekend we even found a zucchini that we missed…and apparently so did the voles!!! This monster weighed 7 1/2 lbs!!!
This giant Black Beauty Zucchini weighed 7 1/2 lbs
It’s a good thing the chickens like zucchini!
Winter squashes have taken a bigger hit from the voles, but for all the plant losses, so far we do have some sizable squash that if the wretched meadow voles spare the plants, show some promise of being harvested.
The Baby Pam pumpkins are starting to turn color…
Our pie pumpkins, Baby Pam, are just starting to turn color
…and I’m desperately crossing my fingers that this large Boston Marrow is spared.
Boston Marrow
The voles are allowing this Red Kuri to fruit…
Red Kuri
…and we’re finding quite a few Marina di Chioggia fruits as well.
Marina di Chioggia
Musquee de Provence is now gone, which is unfortunate. It had beautiful leaves, and we were excited to see the fruits, but we’ll just have to try again next year. The Jarrahdale plants seem to have met their demise too, but Galeux d’Esyines is hanging on, as is Anna Swartz Hubbard, and Gill’s Golden Pippin is busy replacing the fruits that the voles absconded with last week.
Despite being stripped of its fruit, Gill's Golden Pippin is setting more
In the orchard we’re eagerly awaiting our first harvest of Satsuma plums which should be ready by the second week of August.
Our Satsuma Plum, despite the wet spring weather, has set a few fruits which should be ripe soon
We also have fruit set on our Golden Delicious apple. Although it’s not an heirloom apple, it is our universal pollinator for the apples, so we’re glad to see this tree doing so well.
This is the first year we've allowed Golden Delicious to produce fruit
We’ve already had a small crop of cherries, and look forward to this young tree setting much more fruit next year.
'Stella' Cherries
Our new Washington Navel orange tree has surprised us with setting fruit. Although the yield this season will be light, I use a tremendous amount of citrus in the kitchen, both juice and zest, so I’m excited about being able to grow our own.
Washington Navel Orange
The apple scions we grafted earlier this spring are still doing tremendously well. All of the trees have been transferred to 5 gallon containers, and most are at least 4 feet tall! We’ll be busy planting these out in the orchard this winter, along with replacing our Bosc Pear and Frost Peach (thank you, again, voles).
This apple was a mere twig at the beginning of the year, and now is over 4 feet tall!
We’re growing Scarlet Runner beans this year again, for their ornamental and pollinator value.
Scarlet Runner beans always bring a welcome splash of color to the vegetable garden
However, soon we hope to be harvesting an assortment of bush beans including Maxibel, Roc d’Or and Purple Queen.
The Purple Queen bush beans have charming purple flowers
The ‘Nufar’ genovese basil will also keep us busy in the kitchen making pesto. We only just used up the pesto we made last year, so we can’t wait to start making fresh with this year’s crop.
So overall, despite some setbacks with weather, and vole incursions this season, we still have a lot to look forward to this season. We’re just crossing our fingers that the tomato harvest won’t be too disappointing this summer.
It's time to replace this crop of oak leaf lettuce, which is just starting to bolt
As our native wildflowers wind down for the season, we’ll update on what’s still blooming in the gardens next week. In the meantime, it’s time to prep the beds for fall plantings of beets, kale, lettuce, and carrots!
Tomatoes seem to be late for everyone this summer. The vendor at my favorite farmers’ market usually has a wide variety in early July – he had just about a dozen tomatoes of any kind last Sunday.
re the voles – have you thought about putting up some owl boxes?
“Voles are often cited as the favorite prey of barn owls in many areas. Researchers have even documented that barn owls prey selectively on pregnant female voles, thus affecting more efficient rodent suppression. At a weight of 50 grams, voles are an excellent prey size for barn owls, which swallow their prey whole. One family of owls will consume up to 3000 of these rodents annually.”
http://www.barnowlbox.com/pest-species.html
After last year’s ridiculously slow start to tomato season, I didn’t expect we’d see the same this year. Next season better warm up!
We built some owl boxes earlier this year:
https://curbstonevalley.com/blog/?p=5012
These are best suited to Saw Whet and Western Screech Owls though. Unfortunately barn owls don’t really frequent this area, it’s too wooded. They prefer much more open habitat, although you’re right, they are vole munching machines! I’d love to have a couple, but if we can entice the Screech and Saw Whets to occupy a box, or three, and have lots of hungry mouths to feed, that may at least help to make a dent. In the meantime I’m almost enjoying trapping the voles **evil grin**, and getting better at it too…
Your veg garden is looking delicious…mine is sparse and struggling this year…I have tomato/peeper envy…every thing looks so yummy and I love seeing the bees.
So far it’s been quite tasty! Last night’s rose finn apple potatoes from the garden, with wild salmon cakes, were scrumptious 😉
You will have a bountiful harvest with such a harvest.
I’m crossing my fingers, but even if the tomato harvest is sparse this year, the tomatillos will make up for it!
Hi Clare,
Lovely, I’m feeling suddenly very hungry! Those red cherries look amazing, are they netted/caged because I can’t imagine the birds leaving them alone otherwise!
Sorry to hear you’re having yet another cool summer – I’d heard about that on the BBC website 🙁 hopefully things will soon turn around for you. I don’t yet have any ripe Tomatoes this year; this seem to be behind but I’m unsure why as we’ve had warm, dry weather for quite a while now.
We didn’t net the cherries this year, there weren’t enough to worry about 😉 However, next year we’ll have to, as the birds did eat half!
Clare,
I’ll have to keep an eye out for Purple Majesty potatoes they look great. You have a lot going on in the garden for sure. We watered many beds for 2 hours tonight, 4 more 100 degree days expected. Oh I picked 13 large tomatoes surely 10 pounds or more.
Irish Eyes Garden Seeds carries Purple Majesty potatoes in the spring. I liked them better than All Blue for two reasons (other than yield). The inside color is a richer purple, and they seemed to retain their color better during cooking too. I’m so jealous of your tomatoes, but hopefully we’ll have some good yields later in the season.
A lot of variety! Laughed at your very large zucchini! They hide sometimes! But that one’s as big as a baby! I can’t believe you were hand pollinating your squash last year. Cute pic of the two bees in the squash blossom.
I don’t know how we missed that zucchini, except that the Black Beauty plants are so lush and dense, it’s difficult to see under them. This one was right at the bottom of the plant, half submerged in the soft soil underneath. I wouldn’t dare eat it (although I could shred some of the flesh for our Zucchini Orange Bread)…but the chickens will love it!
Oh, it sounds like paradise! Of course, we all know that there are vole-devils hidden in the grass, but still, I’m enjoying the visit – if only through photos.
I suppose it is a sort of paradise, just minus the tropical drink, and a hammock. I really need to work on the hammock part 😉
Oh….all those delicious nightshades…… Why, why, why did the fates scorn me and inflict a recent and serious allergy to such delicious plants?
Your squash are beautiful, as are your fruits.
awww, I’m sorry Lisa. Allergies to nightshades just sounds like no fun at all. To me that would be as bad as not being able eat bread! I’m excited about our plums, I love the Satsuma variety, with it’s sweet flesh, and tart-flavored skin. Yum!
Clare it’s so good to see that alot of your harvest is being spared from the voles. Do you think that they themselves have favourites and maybe their non favourites would be the best to grow again next year? I would love to taste your tomatillo salsa as it was a post from you last year where I first learned about tomatillo’s.
I’m keeping an eagle-eye on the beans. They ran off with 200 pea plants last fall, so legumes seem to be a vole-favorite. I’m sure if anything is off the menu for voles, I think they just systematically work from most to least favorite foods in order. It seems they prefer tomatoes over tomatillos! I actually don’t have a particular tomatillo salsa recipe in mind yet, but we’re trying to persuade a certain someone to part with an authentic family recipe 😉 We’ll have to see if they deem us worthy…
It’s wild, you’ve got tomatillos but your tomatoes are struggling. Our tomatillos are all blooming but then falling off, but our tomatoes are going nuts. We’ve yet to set a single tomatillo fruit.
I did not realize that squash blossoms had nectar! Our bees are usually out there on them every morning even before I get out and about. It is fun to watch the pollen laden bees trying to get airborne. It reminds me of a big cargo plane trying to take off.
I’m glad the voles are not devouring everything in your garden!
Clare, there’s so much food here I’m utterly jealous. All those tomatoes and peppers and other veggies, yum! not to mention fruit coming too. Looks like a pretty bountiful year to me.
Clare, Even though we’ve had a warm, dry July, produce is late here this year, too, because the spring was so wet that people couldn’t plant. My CSA started a week later than last year; and where I was getting 6 cucumbers a week at this time last year (quite a challenge for a one-person household!), we’ve only gotten one so far this year. On the other hand, that warm, dry July has made for a bountiful raspberry crop. (I’ll trade cucumbers for raspberries any day! :-))
Lots of whoppers in the crop. You have a veritable Market Garden here Clare and the images are such a delight it’s easy to forget they are for the mouth not the eyes. Looks like bee heaven.
Your garden is very prolific…lots of goodies! And very nice photos to show it off.
Your tomatillos look great, and your purple beauties have made more progress than mine. Here in DC we’ve been suffering through some oppressive heat and humidity, but I try not to complain too much because the tomatoes and peppers seem to thrive in it. Hope you get some more fruit sets soon!
Thanks for the tour of your vegetable garden! You have convinced me to grow potatoes. I want some colored ones! My own little vegetable plot is well over its prime. Tomato vines are wilted; just a few tomatoes left. Squash is gone. Beans were pitiful this year, which is unusual. Peppers, however, are just getting reved up and hopefully will do well.
What a wonderful post and great photos!!! We are struggling here too with the cool weather, no tomato flowers yet… Aaack, it’s August tomorrow! Love your blog as always – wonderfully done.