End of the season?

As usual, it’s been a very hectic three months since my last post. I really do wish I was able to update my blog more frequently, but school always takes precedence. I have been keeping a hand written journal and documenting with photos along the way though, so all is not lost! I’m wrapping up my spring break vacation just now and figured I needed to try to squeeze a quick update in. So this post will not have as much detail as the last ones, but will give a good overview of my successes and failures thus far.

Last blog I left off with, I was fighting a major battle with the whitefly. Man what a PEST they were. They left, so I’m not sure if I won the battle or if they have just went off somewhere to plan their strategy for this next planting season. I lean toward their regrouping, because it really felt like I was losing the battle. All of my tomato plants made it through, as well as the eggplant, but the peppers were a total loss and that was very sad for me. I love the vibrancy of peppers when they are growing. Not sure if I am going to try peppers again, well maybe a Serrano :)

OK so let’s start off with tomatoes since those were my biggest hit this year and was what was about to come to harvest after I left off with the last blog.

Tomatoes:

“Ball’s Beefsteak”

The first of the full-size tomatoes to come to harvest were the Ball’s beefsteak variety. Even though this plant produced well and regularly, I don’t think I will be planting it again. They were about medium size beefsteaks and perfectly round. I much prefer the ugly variety. They also did not taste as good as the ugly varieties and started to split a lot. Not sure if that was my fault or not. Think it was an issue with the variety though, since the seed magazines show that different varieties have tolerances for splitting and this variety did not have that designation. Between 1/15/12 and 3/9/12, I harvested 25 of these. So here we go with a bunch of progression pics of the Ball’s Beefsteak.

The first harvest on 1/15/12

1/19/12

1/27/12

2/3/12

3/10/12 – And here the plants are today. The older branches are looking pretty brown and tired. So I am going to cut them back and hope to get some new growth and maybe get a Spring crop in before the Summer gets here and I’m unable to grow much due to our heat. All of the tomatoes are looking pretty sad, yet they are still tossing up some blooms… thus the title of the blog. So we’ll see what happens after the cut back.

 “Beefmaster”

These tomatoes have made me incredibly happy. They produce on a regular basis and the flavor is great. They are my second favorite tomato of the beefsteaks and number four in the overall tomato favorites. Once these guys start turning red they go ripe quick. They are also very large tomatoes. Not the largest, but definitely the second largest. These were excellent for pureeing, lots of meat to them and pretty easy to skin after blanching. The ugly style beefsteaks took longer to develop into red fruits, than any of the other plants. This was the second to last to be harvested and once it did, it really started putting out fruit regularly. I harvested 3 when the first fruits came to ripeness and then another 5 shortly thereafter. Between 1/29 and 3/9, I have harvested a total of 25 tomatoes from this plant. This will definitely earn a slot in the garden during the next tomato growing season.

1/19/12 – almost ripe, took another 6 days to get super juicy red.

1/27/12 – once they started tossing up fruit is was virtually non-stop and we loved every minute of it – even once it got to the overwhelming phase. But that just pushed us to find more ways to cook up the delicious tomatoes!

2/1/12 - My little beefy beauties!

2/3/12 – pretty soon we were up to our elbows in tomatoes!

3/10/12 – And here we are today. Perhaps because this plant started later than the others, it looks a bit better. It’s not as worn down looking and is still throwing up plenty of blooms.

“Super beefsteak”

So in my last blog I expressed my sadness over the fact that there were so few blooms on this plant and that it was taking so much longer for the fruit to set and then develop. Well I found out why, and that saying “all good things come to those who wait.” Well that was very applicable with this plant! The super beefsteak is my favorite beefsteak variety thus far and is my favorite tomato out of all of the varieties. These fruit just sit up and punch your tongue saying, “Damn right I was worth the wait, I’m one hell of a tomato and I have the taste to back that!” The meat on them is incredible. They must weigh at least 2lbs on average. And the flavor is exactly what I was hoping for in a beefsteak. These will definitely get a spot in the garden next season.

Between 2/3 and 3/9, I have harvested a total of 12 monster tomatoes and there are still some out there growing now. Super excited and I hope they keep producing into the Spring since they started so late. The plant does appear to be healthy for the most part. It needs to be cutback in some areas.

1/9/12 – still in frustration phase here, hoping for some fruit already from this monster plant.

 1/27/12 – Could it be? The first of the monsters getting ripe?

 And where did you come from? This is when I started to get an inkling of their ultimate size.

 1/29/12 - I was completely unaware of the incredible size of these tomatoes and as such, I did not support them properly in the beginning. I ended up losing a whole branch before I found out just what kind of monsters these fruits would be and that they would need more support. They were fine when it was one tomato growing on a branch, but when they formed in bunches, the branch just couldn’t take it.

2/19/12 – Fortunately the loss of the branch did not cut down on production too much or heart the main plant.

Mosters I tell ya! One of these makes a cup of the most delicious tomato juice.. like nothing out of a can, just plain hard to describe.. ummm earthy, fresh, smooth, no acidic kick, pure tomato taste, just fabulous!

 3/9/12 – This plant got so big that we ended up having to cut the cage out from around it. It is now completely supported by soft ties around the stems and then twine from the soft tie up to the make shift arbor we created. It’s working out very well.

“First Prize Hybrid”

I’m not overly thrilled with this plant. I have a lot of fruit split issues right from the start and the flavor is so-so. Granted it does taste like a tomato, but it just seems flat to me. And I don’t want flat tasting tomatoes wasting space in my garden! Even though it was tied for second with the solar fire as far as how quickly it came to harvest, it will not get another go round next season. I will cut it back and see if we get a Spring harvest from it, but will not start new plants. Between 1/18/12 and 3/9/12 I have harvested 13 fruits that I was actually able to eat or hand out to friends and family. A lot of fruits split and molded right on the vine. Very sad stuff.

1/19/12

 They certainly looked like they would be delicious.

1/27/12

2/3/12 – It produced like crazy and pretty regularly, but the split fruit meant most was wasted.

 2/19/12 – We cut the cage on this plant to give it more space and did the sift tie to the branch then twine from the soft tie up to the arbor. It really is very cool to see the tomato plants sans cage.

 3/10/12 – We cut away most of the dead and poor looking leaves/branches and now it’s a very sad looking plant. I plan to actually cut it down and we’ll see what happens.

“BHN640” slicer tomato

So here it is - the real shocker of the tomato plants. I seriously thought this tomato was going to be awful, because it was just so perfect looking and the name sounded straight out of a tomato horror movie. But it turns out, this is my second favorite tasting tomato out of all of them and my number one pick for the slicer varieties. It is very compact and easy to manage. It was the third of the large fruited tomato plants to come to harvest. Between 1/22/12 and 3/9/12 I harvested a total of 10 tomatoes from this plant. It was a determinate variety, but is still sending up new vines. I hope it will continue into Spring. This plant will definitely earn a spot in the next tomato plot!

1/19/12

 1/22/12 – The first of the “perfect” looking fruit harvested

 2/3/12

 2/19/12

 3/9/12 – Still going, but looking pretty pitiful.

 “Solar Fire” slicer variety

This plant has been interesting. It seems to throw up blooms in fits and starts and I think that is because it is a determinate plant. I’m still learning all of this, so for those who know such things and continue to read on, just think “remember when I was discovering all this” and I’m sure you will smile.

I am happy with the plant. The fruit seem to be the smallest in size of all of the different slicer varieties. The taste is more toward the bland side when put up against the beefsteaks or the BHN640. But there is a huge plus for this plant and that is that it is a more heat tolerant and disease tolerant variety. So even if it is not one of the more stupendously tasting varieties, it will continue to have a space in my future garden and on my sandwiches!

This was tied with the BHN640 plant in terms of how quickly it came to harvest. Both of the plants put out ripe fruit on the same day, so it’s a tie. Between 1/22/12 and 3/9/12 I have harvested a total of 18 tomatoes. There have not been splitting issues like with the First prize and the Ball’s beefsteak, so that was a real plus – and possibly attributable to its heat tolerance factors.

1/19/12 – almost there!

And man were there a bunch!!

 1/22/12 – Finally we have a ripe tomato. I was so totally sweating these since I was not that thrilled with the first slicer variety to come to ripeness (First Prize Hybrid). Fruits are on the smaller side as you can see.

 1/27/12 – Once it started to put out fruit, it was like an unstoppable freight train

 2/3/12 – Still going…

 2/19/12 – and going…

3/9/12 - And it just kept on and on, until the frost slowed it waaaay down – heat tolerant means not so much on the cold tolerant side of things. Good news though - This one should definitely produce until Spring and even into early Summer

“Sweet 100” Cherry Tomato

And now on to my favorite of the plants, the “beast.” These little babies are soooo sweet and I finally understand what “prolific” means when the seed magazines say a particular variety has that trait. Between 12/21/12 and 3/9/12 I have harvested about 700 cherry tomatoes! Once this plant really started to hit its stride in about mid-January, we were harvesting at least 60 a week. It was and still is difficult to keep up with them. I’ve been giving them away to friends, family (even up in NJ – thanks hun for delivering!), neighbors, my adorable Ecuadorian wax specialist, my Mom’s manicurist, and I even sent the Truly Nolen guy home with some the other day (thanks Omar for helping me out). My cherry tomatoes have been spread far and wide lol! 

I have received the most compliments on these though. The Sweet 100 name really says it all. They produce like crazy and are super scrumptiously sweet. I will most definitely be planting these beauties again. They’ll need some better arrangement in the plot next time though – so I can better manage their crazy long vines. I’m hoping to cut these back and get some more harvests in before the Summer heat sets in.

1/19/12 – They were just about to start producing like crazy in this pic. We were only getting maybe 10 a week at this point.

1/27/12 – And here you can see they had hit their stride and when the vines started getting way out of control – it’s like some weird tomato marionette :)

 2/3/12 – And here is when we the regular harvests of about 60 to 100 a week began.

We had to develop a new way to consume more of them at a time other than just snacking on them. So we decided to slice them in half and place them seed side up on a tin foil covered broiler pan top. Then we drizzled some high end EVOO on them and sprinkled with fresh garlic, parsley, sweet and spicy oregano, sea salt and ground pepper, and finished with a sprinkling of high end parmesan cheese. We then baked them for 20 minutes at 350 degrees. While baking we made some roasted garlic oil and grilled up some portabellas basted with my special oil dipping sauce and boiled up some linguine. Then we tossed it all together and OMG what a fabulous meal. Definitely in my top faves now and one I hope we’ll be making this week (hint hint Mom). Here’s what the tomatoes look like before they get tossed with everything. Sorry I don’t have a pic of the final dish, but it is seriously blurred – must have been dying to get at my dinner :)

“The Beast” from afar. And you can see the new pvc skeleton structure we designed for when the chills and frosts come this way. There are some conduit posts banged about 2ft into the ground and then the pvc slides over the 3ft of that that is out of the ground (so the whole thing doesn’t blow away and it gives it rigidity). The top structure is three separate pieces that fit together like Kinect pieces. So it’s easy for my mom and me to get the structure up and down. We then affix sheets to the whole thing using some heavy duty metal clips and it stays put and has saved the whole garden from frost damage. I can keep pull the side sheets up during the day when the temps rise and then drop them back down at night when they dip low again – very easily. It can be stored and used again next cold season. It worked like a charm – my neighbor did not cover his plants and all of them died off. Now I can supply him with some tomatoes!

3/9/12 – I think the plant has finally come to an end. After pruning off all of the tired looking branches and leaves, we were left with some seriously skeletal looking vines. I’m hoping to cut it down and get a fresh spring crop.

 

 

 So that about sums it up for the tomatoes – here’s some shots of some of the great stuff we have done with them.

We started to make some tomato sauce by blanching about 40 pounds of tomatoes to make peeling the skin easy.

Then we got all the seeds and hard parts out.

Then we cut them into tiny pieces.

And eventually (like 12 hours later) they became about 1.5 gallons of yum yum tomato sauce.

Which we then used in a killer baked ziti recipe. Thanks America’s Test Kitchen, for another 100% spot on delicious recipe!

And then my mom did a “creamless” tomato soup that was killer and another 100% spot on recipe courtesy of America’s Test Kitchen

And then we bought a food mill! Man that was a lot of work and the mill should help cut down prep time. The food that resulted from the work though was amazing, so it’s hard to complain too much!!

Eggplant:
 
I have not had much luck with setting fruit on the eggplant. I get some gorgeous blooms but then no fruit  It’s growing nicely and I’ve looked into how I can help pollinate it, so here’s to hoping I can report on some fruit set next blog.

1/19/12

 1/27/12

 2/3/12

 3/9/12 – Come on blooms, you can do it!!

Broccoli:

I’ve harvested two heads of broccoli! Yay!!! I’ve got some more coming up soon, too. I’ll need to plant more next year, because they were just so delicious. These take some vigilant pest hunting actions though. There are some tiny leaf eating worms that like to mow through the huge leaves. We just pick and squish, but you really have to stay on top of it.

2/3/12 – It was very slow going

But the first of the transplants was just starting to show its cute little head

Here are the next guys to come up. They are from the second set of transplants I put out 3 weeks after the first set.



2/19/12 – I waited about a day longer than would have been preferred to harvest this one. The head had just started to spread a bit and we like them more compact than this. But, yay our first harvest and it was delish!!! I missed pics of the second harvest. But we timed this one better and it was more compact and just as good.

 After you harvest the first main head, you get a bunch of little side shoots. Here’s a pic of one developing that you could see after we cut the main head.

Unfortunately we went on vacation for a week and when we returned, those side shoots had turned into little heads and then went to seed. I decided to leave them since I hear that bees absolutely adore the broccoli flowers – maybe the bees will come and pollinate my darn eggplant!

Cauliflower:

Not sure if I am going to get any cauliflower this season. It did not get cool enough for very long and I think they needed a longer cool season. We’re back to 80s during the day and mid-60s at night and it’s only going to continue to get warmer. So I’ll wait and see what happens, but I don’t have much hope for these guys.

2/3/12 

Some even younger starts that have no chance really :(

Corn:

I’m starting to get the handle on the corn. By next cool season, I should be getting regular full ears. I really need to stay on top of fertilizing and pollinating with a brush. We went away for a week and unfortunately that was when two of the biggest pollinating stocks decided to shoot up their tassels. I hear it was very windy, so lets hope that my newly forming ear silks got some pollen and will develop into full ears – I’ll even take cobettes! Luckily I was able to get two ears pollinated somewhat decently before we left and I was able to harvest them today – they will be dinner sides tonight!

 And just before they went in the pot!

Radishes

I finally grew some darn radishes! My mom laughs at me and picks on me here and there, because I am able to grow the tough things and the simplest things like cucumbers, peas and radishes give me the hardest time! Though I have not had success with the cukes or peas again, I finally got some radishes darn it!!!

 Some here – of course the tomatoes overwhelm them a bit :)

 And once I gave up all hope of having the “proper” sized white icicles my mom loves (they’re a spicier variety) low and behold I get some great specimens!

And yes that is a single day cherry tomato harvest the radish is sitting on – now you get “prolific” too huh?

Cucumber

Epic fail on these. I think I need to redo the soil and figure out what exactly lives in my pool cage that strips the leaves right off of these. I thought it was the dog, but she was at the pet coral while we were on vacation and we came back to a stripped plant, so it can’t be her… entirely. I have seen her nibble on them.

Beans and Peas

The southern peas developed powdery mildew. So I kept the aphids away by doing them in bins in the pool cage, but then we got some serious rains over a three day span and the seedlings just couldn’t bounce back. I’m going to try them again and keep them under the cover of the portion of the patio that is roofed in. They will still get some afternoon sun. I did this will the bush beans and they seem to be doing well. The English peas that were out near the corn are starting to show some rust and I think I will do the same for them too. Hoepfully I can get a harvest in before they head too far south into disease land. They are just getting blooms.

Southern Peas

“Contender” Bush Beans - Will be harvesting soon

English Pole Peas

Bush Lima

Once I pulled the southern peas out of the main raised bed plot, the aphids attacked the lima beans, so I just left them as a trap crop to keep the aphids away from the pole beans in the plot and it worked. And amazingly the plant seems to be growing like crazy. They’ve actually started growing up the twine that helps support the pvc frost structure skeleton. It’s producing flat pods though, so the aphids did affect the actual fruit production.

Pole Beans

The pole beans have done fabulously, we were harvesting regularly up until we went on vacation. When the gardening gurus tell you that you have to keep picking these “or else” well then you have to listen. I found out that “or else” means or else they die off. We stopped picking for a week and came back to monster beans and plants that dies three days later. Apparently they figured they had done their job and their time was up. Very sad since we really enjoyed the fresh beans. Here’s a pic of one of our favorite dishes. It’s a caramelized onion balsamic green been recipe.

And speaking of onions! I planted some seedlings in blocks ages ago and it looks like they are finally developing into bulbs, yay!

The herbs are also coming along nicely. I absolutely adore this sweet and spicy oregano and it’s awesome in our homemade sauce.

The herbs in blocks were doing really well, but the parsley seems to have some sort of disease now  But the basil, dill and salvia are all doing very well.

Conclusion

So there it is, another three months of gardening in Southwest Florida. And the end of an amazing season. It’s been challenging, time consuming, and hard labor at some points – but it was all worth it!

Now it’s time for me to cut down some plants, pull out the old and rejuvenate my soil for the Spring.

Until next time, Happy Gardening all!!

Oh and I’ll leave you with this – look at the amazing vegetables we saw at the market in Mexico. Can you believe the incredible size of them? Really wish I had snapped more pictures now. Their Jicama was the size of my head! It was all so amazing. Just look what happens when you don’t allow over farming, cut down on machine harvests and intense pesticide use, and you block GMOs from the farms – you get amazing harvests!!!