Photography Damentions: zone

Showing posts with label zone. Show all posts

Friday, October 25, 2013

For A Few Tomatoes More

Mortgage Lifter, 20 Oct 2013

Temperatures are dipping below the point for comfortably wearing short sleeve shirts outdoors. With that ripening has all but come to an end in the garden, but for a few tomatoes more.

Sweet 100, 20 Oct 2013

There are just two tomato plants remaining in the square foot raised beds. A Sweet 100 in near bed, and my prolific Mortgage Lifter in the far bed.

Quite a few pink and plenty of green tomatoes still cling to the vines. There is a chance I will get some ripe tomatoes before temperatures fall below freezing.

Once the tomatoes are all gone, I will don a poncho, cut down the vines, remove the trellises and cover the growing medium with fresh red plastic. To keep out unwanted seeds. If I get ambitious, I just might create a greenhouse over at least one bed with clear plastic and black plastic tubing. When and if I do, I'll plant lettuce seeds. Bunching onions would be nice, too. For a few 2013 harvests more.

Friday, October 18, 2013

Season's Massive Mortgage Lifter

Behold the season's most massive tomato, a Mortgage Lifter. Harvested 17 October. I guess the vine saved its best for last.

While the average weight of Mortgage Lifters were in the 340g/12oz range this baby weighted in at 688 grams. That is 1-1/2 pounds.

One slice from close to the top of the tomato nearly covered a slice of bread. The grilled cheese, bacon, tomato and jalapeño sandwich with oregano was quite delicious. I will surely miss freshly picked tomatoes from the garden until the first harvested in July 2014.

Tuesday, May 7, 2013

Direct Planted Vegetable Seeds Sprouting

Vegetable seeds were directly planted into the growing medium on 20 April, 2013. These photographs were captured on 4 May, 2013, two weeks after direct planting.

In the plastic boxes were planted ...

I don't remember exactly what I planted in those boxes. I didn't write any notes about these boxes as I did for the raised beds.

Between the open packets of seeds and the visual clues, I believe I planted bunching onions, beets, swiss chard and radishes.

In raised bed #2 the lettuce was peeking out of the slits I cut in the red plastic mulch.

The started tomato plants are showing evidence of growth. I have already been thinking about supports/trellis for the tomatoes and cucumbers to be planted in early June.

Carrots are peeking through the plastic mulch.

Close up of some lettuce.

Once the secondary leaves are opened I will begin to thin down to a few plants per slit. A little later the space will go to the strongest single plant.

I purchased two more varieties of tomato plants - Super Sweet 100, a grape tomato, and Cherokee Purple, an heirloom. I planted them in raised bed #1.

I try to keep the producer's plant ID with each plant.

I visit the home center often to look for new arrivals of tomatoes and peppers. If they ever arrive, I will round out my tomato purchases with a Rutgers variety and a Marglobe variety.

The Rutgers is suppose to be close to the taste of Jersey tomatoes, a familiar flavor from my childhood. Jerseys were tomatoes grown in New Jersey when Campbell's Soup had a tomato soup canning facility in Camden, NJ.

Marglobe I will plant for its abundance of fruit production. The grower touts 50lbs/22.7kg of Marglobes per plant per season. I will need to keep up with watering to fill 50lbs of tomatoes.

I can hardly wait to bite into one of these beauties. Teeth snapping through the red skin, juice popping into the air and seeds dribbling down my chin and onto the front of my shirt. I'll swoon from the odor of vine ripened tomato as the acid cuts into my sun parched lips. Is there anything better? Well, maybe there is. This has got to be a really close second, right?

Good gardening!

Thursday, October 18, 2012

Square Foot Garden - Season Yield Totals

From the very start of the gardening season 2012, I weighed and recorded the yield from my square foot garden. All the entries are below on the spreadsheet.

The top three producing vegetables in the garden by weight were:

Cucumber - 3835g / 7.85lbs.
Super Sweet 100 Tomato - 30g / 6.85lbs.
Husky Cherry Tomato - 3099g / 6.34lbs.

The two patio type tomatoes were planted in mid-May and produced fruit steadily from mid-June through late September. The cucumbers were planted in early June and harvesting started in the third week of August. Once they started to produce, it was like a cucumber explosion.

The total weight for the full size tomatoes was 9022g /19.89lbs. The full size tomatoes were, as usual, late to harvest. There were a few that ripened in mid-July but most were harvested in mid-August.

There were a few bell peppers of orange and red and dozens of cayenne peppers harvested. All the peppers weighed in at 1371g / 3.2lbs.

Lettuce amounted to 805g / 1.77lbs.

Snow Peas totaled 321g / 0.71lbs.

Although two squares were planted with four melon plants, no fruit materialized.

Several varieties of potatoes were planted in two towers. Only three varieties produced potatoes.

Yukon Gold - 237g /0.48lbs

Russet - 418g / 0.88lbs

Red Norland - 376g 0.77lbs

Potato total - 1037g / 2.27lbs.

Not a great total and no where near my expectation.

Now can I get a drum roll, please?

The 2012 fruit and vegetable total weight harvested from the 4' /1.2m x 4' /1.2m plot, two potato towers and one pot containing the Chocolate Cherry tomatoes was 23.323 kilosgrams / 48.39lbs. (Crash a cymbal, here, please!) Not a bad amount for the small space.

However, the plot could have produced much more. If I had used the plot to its fullest potential. For there were several 1' squares that went unplanted the whole season and several other squares that were fallow for some of the season. Plus the melons needed something I wasn't giving them.

One of the reasons for not utilizing the plot to its fullest was the heat. I just didn't want to go out into the high temperatures this summer. Maybe its because I am old. Maybe its because I am lazy or disorganized. For what ever reason I just didn't get it done in the garden this year.

I did, however, enjoy beautiful home grown organic tomatoes, peppers, lettuce, snow peas, cucumbers and potatoes. As for the garden's potential?

Just wait until next year! There is always next year.

Tuesday, August 7, 2012

Early August Harvest

Graphic:Weather Underground

Early August and the square foot garden has survived a hot July. There were 21 days with temperatures 90ºF/32ºC and above, with very little rainfall, 1.48"/3.75cm of actual month total precipitation compared to 4.35"/11cm normal month total, as reported by Weather Underground. With the help of irrigation and nighttime temperatures over 70ºF/21ºC the tomatoes and peppers are ripening. I am picking grape/cherry tomatoes daily.