Harvest Season Gets Underway

The other day I went to all the trouble of taking and uploading pictures and then I completely forgot to update my blog with them! It's 35 days after my main planting on July 17th and already I'm harvesting things. Here are some photos from August 19th, showing the progress of the garden and some of the fruits of my labors. These are in no particular order.

The garden, just over one month after planting. The tomatoes are almost as tall as me and I've given up trying to stake them up. So far they have lots of flowers and green fruit.

I planted this cabbage from seed and it might just have a chance of setting fruit before the snow flies. No flowers yet, though.

Scarlet Queen turnips--they are just so beautiful. Their greens also grew a lot taller and straighter than the other turnips, making them even more distinctive.

My first turnip harvest! Definitely the most adorable vegetable, I am looking forward to making them into tasty pickles this weekend as more mature.

I was too exhausted to do anything with the greens so I guiltily composted them.

Here's a closeup of some of the caterpillar damage.

Amazingly, though, the cabbages are starting to head. I may need to sprinkle them with bug killer again once the rain lets up, but they are well on their way to being sauerkraut now.

My first bean blossoms. Come on little guys, you can make beans before winter, I just know it!

And hooray! My first tomato of the season (Rutgers variety). It was tomato-tastic, though one side was home to some kind of naughty bug. I ate the rest though and it was like mainlining summer.

So that's the update as we zoom headlong into fall. Yesterday at the bakery I took an order for a cake for the day after labor day! It's really just around the corner. It's amazing that I was able to pull off this garden and it's been very rewarding, even though harvest is just beginning. It's my first real garden and the results are amazing. After our deluge a week ago we had more dry weather, so I started watering again. Today, though, we had a nice gentle rainfall that will help the plants to fill out.

Seedlings Starting to Emerge!

Daikon radish seedlings peeking out of the soil to say 'Hi'.

How very exciting--my seeds are starting to emerge! It's truly amazing how fast they can grow. I went out to check this morning and saw a few radish and purslane (cultivated) seedlings, and by the afternoon there were turnips, beans, cucumbers, and basil as well, and the radishes had already grown much larger.

It's funny to see how my seeding deteriorated throughout the afternoon that I planted. My first block of radishes are in a perfect offset grid. By the time I reached the end of the mound, I basically scattered them in the rows, telling myself I'll thin them later.

My carrots haven't yet emerged, but from what I've read it sounds like they take a while. I may have made some mistakes in planting them...I just found a guide here. It rained right after I planted them, which may have compacted the soil. The publication recommends covering them with vermiculite instead of soil to prevent this problem. Also, the fertility of the spot I chose might be a bit high. Oh well, it's all just an experiment. Here are a few more photos of my lovely seedlings.

These cucumber seedlings just can't wait to provide me with delicious pickles one day.

Happy little bean seedlings with purple stripes. It will be interesting to see if the adult plants will retain any of their dappling. The seeds were certainly beautiful.

Planting Turnips, Carrots, Radishes, Greens, Green Onions and assorted seedlings

Whoo hoo I did it! I finished planting everything I needed to get into the ground right away. The only things left are finding space for the remaining cole crop seedlings and digging a mound for my fall garlic planting. I finished not a moment too soon, since we're expected to get pounded by storms this evening.

Freshly planted garden, viewed from the SW corner.

And from the NE corner. Yeah, my rows aren't perfectly straight, but I don't think the plants will care.

July 16th Planted:

Roots

• Hakurei Turnip (38 days)
• Purple-Top White Globe Turnip (55 days)
• White Satin Carrot (68 days)
• Sugarsnax Carrot (68 days)
• Miyashige Daikon Radish (50 days)
• Scarlet Queen Green Stem Turnip (43 days)
• Shunkyo Semi-Long Radish (32 days)

Greens

• Garnet Giant Mustard Greens
• Toscano Kale
• Champion Collards
• Redleaf Amaranth
• Goldberg Golden Purslane
• Summerfest Komatsuna Greens
  
• Cooking Sorrel

Onions

• Evergreen Hardy White Bunching Onion
• Nabechan Bunching Onion

Cucurbits

• 8-Ball Summer Squash (2nd planting)
• Sunburst Patty Pan Summer Squash (2nd planting)
• Amour Pickling Cuke (2nd planting)

Misc. Seedlings

• 2 Watermelon Seedlings (var. unknown)
• 4 Cayenne Pepper Seedlings
• 4 Brussels Sprouts Seedlings
• 2 Purple Kohlrabi Seedlings

For most of the plantings I did a box-style layout, giving turnips 6-8" and carrots and radishes 2-3". I planted a lot of the Hakurei turnips, because I liked them so much. I really hope they grow well. The greens should be exciting too, though I don't know if the kale and collards will get beyond the 'micro-greens' stage. I tried to arrange the root crops so that the quick-maturing varieties were in a very sunny spot, which I can sow with a fall crop of greens or peas.

At this point my space is pretty much used up. I'm kicking myself for not having the neighbor till the garden further east, but I was too lazy to move the giant rock pile out of the middle of the paddock. Most of the west side is unusable because of the shade from the maple trees. Oh well...I can always refine it next year.

In other news, my peppers are looking droopy. I'm trying to water them well, but they just won't perk up. Maybe with the coming rainstorm, all the fertilizer will be mobilized and the plants can take it up and be happy. If the peppers bite the dust I'll gladly plant other stuff in their place, since it's prime real estate.