tomato – My tiny u.p. farm

Mid Season Bounty

August 5, 2021Jen Powell1 Comment

Our garden is growing like crazy! Some vegetables are starting to ripen, and we’re eating lots of fresh stuff. We had a lot of lettuce, which I’ve been trying to pick before it bolts. We have had zucchinis galore! I’m growing three kinds this year, a regular green type, a yellow zucchini, and Zucchini Rampicante (a long type that curls). I’ve even just picked a couple of vine-ripened tomatoes! (Usually I’m waiting on some of those till later in the season). My garlic is almost ready, and we’re getting cabbage. Below you can see the photos of the garden:

Here is a picture down the path of our main garden.

My husband next to my Mongolian Giant sunflower plant, first in Mid July and then just this past weekend. He is 5’10” for reference. The plant is still growing – supposed to get up to 14 feet tall. In the second pic you can see one of the curly zucchini in the foreground.

Two of my cabbage that I picked. They formed some nice heads.

Here is my first sunflower to bloom in the main garden. It’s supposed to be more of a red variety.

Tomatoes in August, and lots of squash

August 25, 2019August 25, 2019Jen Powell2 Comments

The garden is doing really well. We are getting ripe tomatoes in August! Typically it’s into September before we get any. More exciting pictures below!

tomatos — Some of our tomatoes – I’ve been watching for them to start turning pink. Then I pull them in because I don’t want to tempt fate. I left a roma to ripen on the vine and it started getting blossom end rot. So I’ve been letting them start to turn and pulling them in.

big ripe tomato — Here is the big tomato in the previous picture, now ripe. It ripened on our counter.

round squash — We have lots of squash – I saved seeds from an Heirloom pumpkin (I think some kind of hubbard squash) – I have two plants, and both of them seem to be growing different shapes of fruit. This one has things that look like this, rounded. The other one has big pumpkin shaped green and yellow squashes. We’ll see what we end up with. Either way, it’s very exciting.

I received pumpkins from a coworker in the fall and saved seeds – he had grown them locally. This is one of those pumpkins. The plant has two fruits that I can tell, and they both are oblong like this and currently zucchini colored.

Here is my butternut squash – this fruit grew from almost nothing in about a week’s time.

giant pumpkin — Here is the other heirloom squash. This one continues to grow. I am wondering if the color will change much when it ripens, or how it will change.

We harvested onions today – I got 110 yellow, and 20 red. I had been taking them here and there for cooking as well, so we grew a little more than that.

Some of our calendula – these were two plants that have merged into one mass of flowers.

sugar rush peach pepper — Here is one of my Sugar Rush Peach peppers – it’s not ripe yet – they are supposed to be an orange color.

Here is a bee that was sunning itself on our porch.

The garden is really doing well – a lot of stuff is starting to wind down though. I can’t believe it’s already almost September. But the season is still in full swing.

Early Fall Gardening

October 9, 2017Jen PowellLeave a comment

We’ve been harvesting tomatoes left and right. We’ve gotten a little bit of zucchini. It’s funny how you plan for the year and things just grow how they want, with no regard for your planning. Last year I was overrun with zucchini and yellow squash, so this year I grew one plant of each. They have not done well, so I’ve gotten 2 zucchini and it’s already October. With the amounts of rain we had this year (and it’s not done) the garden has been a little hit or miss for some things. Here are some newer pics of our garden:

087 — Some very tiny cherry tomatoes. These are very tasty, and super prolific. I even had some sprout from last year’s lost broken tomatoes (I call them rogue tomato plants).

089 — Some of our purple tomatoes. I thought these were Black Krim, but as I had others ripen I think these darker ones are actually blue beauty. I remembered Black Krim having a lot of green and these don’t.

091 — The largest pumpkin I’ve grown, shown between my feet. These were supposed to be pie pumpkins. This is more jack-o-lantern size.

082 — A nice sunny sunflower. This grew in my yard (not in the actual garden bed) , in an area that didn’t get mowed this year. The chickens didn’t eat it before it had a chance to grow either, so that was lucky. I think the deer have stayed clear of my yard with all the dog and chicken activity.

085 — The ducks enjoying a nice day in the back yard.

094 — Here is our garden at the end of September.

097 — Another view of the garden, from the porch.

001 — Another large pumpkin. This one was hanging from our fence but I picked it so it could finish ripening on the porch. I like how the leaves look still attached here.

002 — Downey checking out the porch. There are other pumpkins behind him.

012 — A view from inside the garden in early October.

013 — We finally are getting some cauliflower heads! I had given up, but then a few days ago I saw a white head. I tied the leaves up on the plant, like you’re supposed to. A day later I found another of my plants has a head, so I did the same thing. This is my first year growing it.

024 — Here are the rest of the tomatoes. We are supposed to get down into the 30s tonight, so I got spooked and figured I’d rather bring the large ones in. It was a little dark when I picked them, so there may be others out there. These will ripen on the table. There are still a ton of cherry tomatoes outside.

bee — Another Bee on a bright red sunflower.

butterfly 2 — A butterfly on our zinnias. There has been a lot of bee and butterfly activity on all the flowers lately – I think some are getting ready to migrate somewhere, or store up food for winter.

The garden is starting to wind down a bit. We still have a lot of stuff to harvest, but most of it will be ok if we get frost. Carrots and beets are still getting larger, and I have some Kale to pick. We also have peas and beans, but I’m letting those dry on the vines. I’m hoping I get enough peas to make a little bit of pea soup. I usually don’t let them go that long (they are so yummy picked earlier) but I want to give it a try.

The garden in Mid July

July 15, 2017Jen PowellLeave a comment

We had a very rainy June – most of the things I had direct sowed into the garden must have drowned. They did not sprout. So I had to replant a lot of seeds – beans, carrots, beets. Since the beginning of July we’ve dried up a little bit – we are getting more sun than rain anyway, so that is helping. The garden is finally taking off. Here are some pictures:

Here is a nasturtium – it’s been flowering already and is starting to try to climb the fence.

Here are my pea seedlings. I hadn’t planted peas originally, but my 4 rows of beans didn’t sprout in June, so when I replanted I put in some peas as well.

beans — Here are the new bean seedlings. I had originally planted yellow, green and purple. I ran out of purple at the original seeding, so these are just green and yellow. They’ll do.

beets and carrot — Here are the two beets and one carrot that managed to sprout out of all the rows I put in in June. I replanted seeds today. At least these three plants helped me figure out where some of the rows should be. Now I’ll have to thin everything when it sprouts.

garden long view — Here is the long view down the center of the garden. I have various flowers along the path – zinnias, calendula, and a marigold or two.

My artichoke! I only had one come back this year, and it already has an artichoke. I haven’t decided if I’ll pick it – it’s not very big. Artichokes grow here but I haven’t had luck with them being very large. I only had one plant make it through the winter this year. (I had 3 last year).

My giant lemon balm plant. I actually split it, so this is half of the original plant. The other half is in my front yard. This half is about 2.5-3 feet wide. I keep finding babies in the garden where I had moved it from. I absolutely love it. It smells so good and makes really good tea.

tomato weeds — I have tomato “weeds” sprouting all over – they must have reseeded from last year – I don’t know what variety they’ll be. I did pick out some but there were a lot. I’m guessing they’ll be cherry – those were hard to get to (in the corn/sunflower jungle) and I lost a lot of them into the garden last year. So they are the most likely candidate.

My melon-turned-purslane patch. I have cantaloupes and watermelons in the middle of the bags, and then purslane have exploded between the bags. I found a recipe for purslane pickles, so I’m going to eat them. This is the part of the garden I reclaimed from the yard, so that is my guess as to why I have so much purslane. I have not had an issue with it in this garden before. Luckily it’s edible and tasty.

I have a re-seeded sunflower (or two) growing in my onion patch. I have sunflowers all over the place! Very exciting! To the left you can see my potato bags. They are doing pretty well.

Here are the ducks. We recently sold three of them, so we only have three left. We were overrun with duck eggs. We are planning on cutting down on our chicken flock as well, to help with food costs through the winter.

backyard — Here are the chickens. We’ve let them run around the back yard a lot this year. Their run is still really muddy in spots from the rain, and they have been keeping the grass down but not completely killing the lawn, so it’s been ok. They enjoy foraging a lot.