A Little Bit of the Good Life

[errantember]

I am currently, more for the irony than anything else, roasting the one and only pepper I've managed to coax out of the fertile soil of Forward Zone Alpha this year. Weighing in at precisely 0.1 oz, I'm not ever sure if it's possible to scorch the skin of the pepper properly before the entire thing turns to carbon. After losing one of my two non-cherry tomatoes, the only to ripen so far, to a fucking bird, I'm having a little trouble envisioning ever feeding myself from my own garden.

The Sweet 100s, though, the only plant I have right now that will set fruit in our routinely-over 95-degree weather, are killer.

I thought about photographing the pepper first, but it was hard to get enough of the penny I had set down for size comparison into picture to know what it was.

Comments

Oops.

[errantember.livejournal.com]

I overcooked it.

Mmmmm!

[errantember.livejournal.com]

Rubbery!

[austingoddess.livejournal.com]

I just saw my first non-cherry tomatoes yesterday. I'm crossing my fingers that they'll make it to ripe.

[errantember.livejournal.com]

That's very exciting! What varieties do you have?

[austingoddess.livejournal.com]

I've got 1 cherry tomato plant that's been producing slow but sure. I've got one heirloom plant (the medium-sized green stripey one) that hasn't produced yet but is taller than I am. The 6-pack I planted around the edges are your basic red salad tomato, and that's where I'm finally seeing some production. I'd have to find the tags to remember the varieties. :) All but 2 of the 6-pack are absolutely huge plants, and the 2 aren't because they are near the fence and get less sun.
I do have 5 types of seeds from unusual tomatoes yet to plant, though I'm glad for the reminder as I had better do that this weekend if they're going to produce before November. They're supposed to all be heirlooms - the container of tomatoes from Trader Joe's advertised them that way - but at least 1 is a yellow grape variety.

[knighthorse.livejournal.com]

We're doing pretty good. Our squash plants continue to produce a good amount without us getting sick of them. The jalapeño plants produce way more than we can eat. And the cucumbers are also thriving.

The tomatoes however, are having issues. It seems that they got too much water and the stalks burst. We have 2 plants still producing a few, slowly ripening fruit.

Also doing well with cantaloupes. They are close to being ripe.

How large is your garden?

[errantember.livejournal.com]

When that bed is done it will be about 150 sq ft. Right now it's only about 1/3 of that. In that space I've got about 9 tomato plants and 5 pepper plants. I've got the foundation laid for the next 1/3rd, I just need to stack the blocks and put in the dirt and compost to plant for fall.

[goudananda.livejournal.com]

I say keep working on it. Personally I find the drip tape system we purchased at the HPC to be the thing that most influenced the garden positively there. In addition to tilling in compost and full sun for most of the day, the garden has grown like mad. If you don't have enough room or sun to work with you should talk to Bob about putting in a plot at the HPC, I'm sure he'd be happy to work out an exchange of some sort and I'll be there regularly checking on things.

We've had two cantaloupes split, from I believe getting too much water. The cantaloupe that Andre sent home with Andrea looked great and then wilted to nothing overnight. Our tomatos are producing, but slowly and several plants aren't setting fruit in the heat. I suppose I'm going to start new plants soon for a fall harvest and cut back the ones in the ground to let them try and fruit a new when the temps fall.

It's nice to hear everyones food growing experiences.