Meanwhile, Back On The Home Front

It was very difficult leaving our garden for five days just when temps hit 90+ and stayed there.  We hadn't had rain in about a week and there was none in the forecast.  But luckily SS2 would be home the entire time we were gone and he promised to water.  Since we grow so much in containers the instructions were a little complicated, but he did a great job and even the herb seedlings that were just starting when we left, were alive and thriving when we got home:

We failed to give him any instructions on harvesting though.  But a lost cherry tomato isn't much of a price to pay for our wonderful vacation:

 

And since there's always the chance that this will be the only zucchini we harvest (given my terrible luck growing zukes), it's okay that it ended up the diameter of a baseball bat: 

 

The beans popped up while we were gone:

As did the malabar (at the base of the trellis if you can spot it past the moonflower taking over anything it can reach):

   

I thought about bringing Elizabeth a lamium from my garden, but ultimately didn't (it felt weird to show up to her house on that first day empty-handed).  When I mentioned it to her, she said she wished I had and showed me how her lamium were spreading, but developing a weird white stripe down the center of the leaf instead of the normal almost entirely white leaves.  When I got home I checked my self-sown lamium and sure enough mine were doing the same thing!  Just as well I didn't bring any with me:

 

The wildflower patch is doing really well.  There are actual flowers blooming though they're tough to see here:

But there was something that looked a little off.  The Red potatoes never flowered, but the foliage appeared to be dying back:

 

You probably don't remember, but I planted 4 seed potatoes in this black plastic pot, but didn't bother with hilling them.  I just plopped the potatoes in the bottom of the pot and filled it with soil.  So my hopes were not high when we tipped the pot over onto a tarp:

 

But we found 6 good size potatoes.  Lee said this wasn't much return on our investment.  I disagreed -- it's a 150% return on our investment!  And they're so pretty:

 

Then Lee dumped the wood box over onto the tarp:

 

I'm going to let the two large gray containers in the veggie garden go until the foliage on them dies back completely.  We found a lot of tiny little potatoes on the roots of the plants in the wood box and I wonder if giving the others a little more time will yield more potatoes.  But this wasn't at all a bad harvest from 4 seed potatoes:

 

Lee holding the first tomato, a Purple Cherokee:

 

And today's harvest which included 2 more tomatoes, a Brandywine Pink and a Purple Cherokee, and 4 different varieties of beans, mostly Royal Purple bush beans:

 

We had a friend over for lunch today and while we sat on the patio the butterfly bush did its job.  We couldn't believe this guy could still fly:

 

This one stopped by about an hour later, but I still didn't choose the right setting for my camera, though it would still be a rather sad photo with so much wing gone:

 

And yes, lunch included potato salad made from our own potatoes (delish!) and fresh mozz, tomato, and basil (our own tomatoes and basil of course).  There are quite a few tomatoes that are almost ripe (Hillbilly, a new variety to us and we hope a tasty one) and we still have all those beans to use.  I love growing our own vegetables!

Comments

[meemsnyc]

That is a pretty good potato harvest. Ours hasn't been so great! Will have to try it in containers next year! Love the butterflies. Pretty.

[Blackswampgirl Kim]

Oooh... I am so jealous of your Purple Cherokee, and those delicious-looking beans and potatoes! I think I need to sow beans again. Maybe tomorrow, even.

By the way, great job to SS2. Seedlings aren't always easy for even experienced gardeners, and those look great. :)

[Heather's Garden]

Meemsnyc -- All I know is that it's easy to harvest the potatoes from the containers. I can't wait to see how many Yukon Gold we get!

Kim -- I think I have to sow some more beans too! SS2 says thank you and held up his green thumb to show it off.

[Dee @ Red Dirt Ramblings]

Hey Heather! Glad you're back home. I was at the hospital with my mother and read of your Canadian adventures, but when I went to comment, something fouled up on the iPhone. Imagine that.

I came home to an irrigation system gone awry, but my very patient husband fixed it. Lovely getting to know you so much better.~~Dee

[Layanee]

Didn't those potatoes taste better than any ever bought? Mine seem to be dying back also and I did not have that problem last year. Hmmmm....nature sometimes does weird things. Garden looks great.

[Heather's Garden]

Dee -- I hope all is okay with your mom? It's it lovely to have a very patient husband! I'm just sorry we didn't have more time to visit in Buffalo, maybe next time.

Layanee -- They did! And we've bought potatoes from local garden stands, but these were better. So looking forward to the rest of our harvest. I'm thinking maybe it's the heat getting the potatoes? Though the Yukon gold and the red fingerlings seem fine.

[fern]

I feel your pain about the zucchini. I never had much luck with zucchini until this year. I think hand-pollinating helped, as did having MORE squash plants in general; perhaps the greater number of blossoms attracted those pollinators.

As for the potatoes, I remember last year my potato plants never bloomed, and the tops were so deccimated by slugs, i was hugely doubtful I'd get any spuds...but I did, many times over.

My potatoes DID bloom this year and they are looking like they're dying back some, but I think you're supposed to wait longer before harvesting.

[Heather's Garden]

Fern -- It's not a pollination problem, lots of male flowers, fewer female, which makes for not a lot of zukes. I think we're having a warmer than usual summer which is making the potatoes come sooner than expected, or at least sooner than I expected. I'm letting the other die back completely before I do any harvesting.