Monday, July 2, 2007

Garden update


My sweet potato plant just keeps getting bigger and bigger. I need to research when you harvest these.


My first onion harvest. These are a little small, the ones that are left are much bigger.

My first Cherokee Purple tomato. What is this line going around the bottom of the tomato? Is it a pest? It looks rotten, but I haven't cut the tomato open yet to see.

My brocolli got attacked by caterpillars, it looks awful now. Look back a few posts and see how well it was doing. Should I let it try to recover or remove the head and wait for the side shoots?


Here are the bigger onions poking out of the dirt.
My blue potatoes just keep getting bigger and bigger. Can I dig a few up to eat now or do I need to do them all at the same time?


Our first pumpkin. Again, I have no idea when to harvest. It is a miniature pumpkin so it may not get much bigger than this but I assume it will get oranger?

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi Christy, I plant my sweet potatoes in late May early June and I don't harvest until Sept/Oct. Usually you can see hills forming in the dirt when they're there.

It looks like your tomato has blossom end rot. I hate that! It could just be a large catfacing too, not entirely sure. If all your tomatoes on the plant start having this problem you have blossom end rot. Try watering only at the roots and not getting the fruits themselves wet. You may have a low calcium problem as well. I bury crushed eggshells in with the transplants in the spring to help with that.

I would remove that brocolli head and hope for shoots. You have to watchthose caterpillars, they're rough! I usually keep my brocolli plants covered at all times so the moth never has a chance to lay her eggs on my plants.

You can start harvesting your potatoes at any time after they've flowered really and are starting to die back. I will usually start going out and plucking a few of the little new potaotes off of the top now and wait for more dieback before I go digging for the monsters!! :)

I think you're right about the pumpkin, I think he needs to orange up a bit. Again, watch for the dieback from the plant. Also, you may want to support that little guy so he doesn't fall or get knocked off before his prime!! :) I hope I was helpful!

Christy said...

Thank you for all the useful information! I'm pretty new to most of these veggies. The one tomato is the only one I've seen so far with the problem. I'm going to cut it open tomorrow to see if any of the inside is usable. My potatoes only got 2 flowers a few weeks ago and haven't bloomed anymore since. Is this bad? Is there anyway I can encourage them to bloom? Will the sweet potatoes bloom? I may have planted a little early for some of these things. I got excited and couldn't wait.

Anonymous said...

Nope, two flowers are plenty, they're not proficient bloomers. I would say you could start digging around the top and look for the little guys if you want to. The plants should start dying back soon.
Your sweet potatoes will bloom the same way, just a couple of flowers, but they're very pretty, like morning glories.
That's good news about the tomato, it's probably just some catfacing, which means it's ugly, but edible! :)