Ayanna's Garden Cafe

This is all about my adventures in urban gardening. I'm branching out!

Wednesday, August 10, 2005

Harvest Time

I did not accomplish everything, but sometimes a little goes a long way. It's time to reap what I sowed!

The tomatoes have been weird again this year, even though I was careful not to crowd the pots. I guess I need to try to pot even fewer in the same pots next year. The leaves are yellowing, so that probably means that I can't expect to see any more blossoms this year. Thus, my tomato yield will be about 20.

My peppers are doing ok, but not nearly as well as they did last year. I had two pepper plants, and I still do not have as many peppers as I did last year. One plant came from seeds I saved from a store bought pepper, so I know that will work again next year. I'm already saving seeds from the minis to try them again next year. They are the cutest!

The onions seem to have worked well so far. I had no idea what to expect, so I yanked one of them out of the ground to see what I had, and I had two onions! Now, I'm wondering if I could have had more, so I left the other plants in the ground to see what I might have in a few weeks.

The potatoes are rather small, but it looks like I might have more than I bargained for by the end of the season. I pulled six from the ground, but they were at the top, so I haven't even gone down deep in the soil to see what else is there. I might end up with 40 or more little taters, perfect for mashing come fall and winter. Not bad at all.

I never got to see what really happened to the carrots, because now the entire pot is submerged in green, slimy water and I don't even want to go near it. I may try to see what will happen this fall, but I'm not so sure that it will work. I still have collard greens, which appear to like cooler weather, so maybe I'll drop a few seeds in a pot and wait to see what will pop up by October.

The biggest disappointment this year was the peach tree. My grandmother had a peach tree for many years and I don't recall a single season when she did not have peaches. I don't recall any hungry squirrels or that many birds, and I certainly don't recall that she did anything special to maintain it. So what is the problem with my tree? I'm thinking about taking a few of the dried moldy fruit to a garden center to see if someone there can diagnose the problem for next year. I am committed to having that tree survive and thrive!

That's that for now. No deer sightings recently, and I have yet to see the fox that lives in the woods. I did see an ugly opposum last night, so we still have the more common forms of wildlife. I just hope that they don't like vegetables...