Drying tomatoes

I think I am going to try drying some of my cherry tomatoes. Here's a nice post on how to dry tomatoes:
http://straightfromthefarm.wordpress.com/2007/09/19/squirreling-it-away/

A view restored

Last week, the corn across the street was harvested:

It's nice to have a clear view of the other side of the valley again. The field itself looks a little.. dead now. I've seen deer picking over the leftover husks and stalks almost every evening.

Mid-Sept garden update

The garden is still producing tomatoes and zucchini at a good rate, but over the last few days as nighttime temperatures have dropped to 50 or below, things have started to droop a little. The cucumber, cantaloupe, and the oldest zucchini vines have shriveled up due to a combination of temperature and powdery mildew (the mildew problem started after the hail storm in August that shredded the leaves). I had a crazy crop of zucchini from the "throwaway" plants in the back plot:


I walked into the garden this morning and found that someone had clawed and chewed a chunk out of my biggest of two cantaloupes:

It seemed fairly ripe inside- the taste was very mild and basically like one from the supermarket.


The pea plants are coming along fairly nicely. Someone is biting the tops and tender tendrils off of some of the plants, but because I planted so many seeds, loss of a few here and there to nibblers isn't a big deal.

I had to start over with the cabbage and broccoli. Last Sunday was brutally hot and the little seedlings fried under the hot sun and the black mulch sheet.

Visit to Monticello

I went to Monticello this weekend. The flower and vegetable gardens were still growing in full force. Here's a picture of the 2 acre kitchen garden. It's on a terrace created along the side of the little mountain:


Here's a way to make my garden more authentically old-school Virginia- make a teepee-type structure by leaning poles against each other and binding them together at the top:

Lots of the beans were growing on this type of structure.

Smooshy pickles

Opened a can of pickles today. They tasted like pickles, but were quite smooshy. Why?
From http://www.mrswages.com/faq.asp#10:

What causes soft or shriveled pickles?
A number of things, including:

* Holding cucumbers too long after harvesting. They must be processed within one day of picking.
* Growing conditions ... either too wet or too dry.
* Overprocessing. Begin your pickling immediately ... don't leave cucumbers sitting in water.
* Cucumber varieties not suitable for pickling. Those varieties include burpless and slicing cucumbers.
* Using cucumbers from poorly nourished or diseased plants.

Perhaps a combo of 1, 2, and 5 lead to the demise of my pickles.

Mysterious eggs

Someone has been laying their (tiny) eggs on the fence netting surrounding the garden.


The random pea supports are up. Various unused metal cages, some twine, and stakes.


I've put down ground cover on one of the garden sections. I'm going to try to grow cabbage and broccoli in a covered environment. Sure didn't work without cover this spring.

Early September

Finally... some sunflowers. I planted them really late, but a lot of them also got eaten by various critters.


The marigolds are going strong- sort of taking over the tomatoes in some places. here's a fancy frilly one. I have four types of blossoms- dark red, two kinds of yellow starburst, and this type:


The pumpkin is still looking as good as it can with all of the hail pits:


There's a second canteloupe that's coming along pretty well.