You Win Some, You Lose Some

Gosh, I have a LOT to report.

I have to say that overall I am definitely doing better this year than last year. No doubt. And though I've had plenty of disappointments, everything seems to have a silver lining. Case in point, I have been lamenting the July demise of my zucchinni plants, two years running now. All evidence points to squash vine borers. I have done limited research on these little critters, but what I have done seems to suggest that at some point in early spring these moths lay thier eggs on or in the plants, and that after the eggs hatch and begin to eat the plant, the plant usually dies around mid July. This certainly seems to be the case with my zucs. But here's the thing. My yellow crookneck squash are doing beautifully, and they are virtually identical to the zucs only thier fruit looks different, so I would have to assume that they are also succeptible to the borers. I didn't put them in the garden until after I had harvested the last of the turnips and radishes and beets, 13 June, as opposed to the zucchini which were set out in May. So what I'm thinking is that maybe next year I can put out a squash and a zuc in May, and follow up with more plants in mid June, so that if (make that WHEN) the first round dies in July, I will keep getting both veggies from the new plants, my theory being that I may have missed the egg-laying stage with the crookneck squash and so they didn't end up with borers. I figure it's worth a shot. I've made a note for next spring.

I harvested some potatoes this week. This plant seemed to be falling over, and I was out of potatoes, and anyway I was just dying to know what the heck is going on in there, so I pulled it up.


This is what potatoes look like when they're growing.

The good news is that they were delicious. The bad news is that there weren't as many as I had hoped. The silver lining is that I think I can do better next year. I think that the potato "cages" were probably a good idea, but that I still did not manage to keep these potato plants hilled up enough to encourage maximum production from them. I'm thinking that next year I will not plant them in mounds to start, and that I may set them aside in their own garden plot and make it a raised bed so that I can keep adding soil to it. I think that I had way too much foliage showing. Next year I will also plant horseradish with the potatoes, as that's supposed to help deter the potato beetles. My potato beetles did not turn out to be a major problem, and next year I will be vigilant about looking for those eggs before I have to start crushing beetles.

My main project this week was to do a major pickle canning project. I bought a hot water bath canner and some mason jars, and set to it.

The good news is that the tweaking I did to the recipe after tasting my refridgerator pickles was perfect, it corrected the flavor in exactly the way that I wanted. The other good news is that although it seems like a lot is going on at one time, which can be kind of flustering, I'm not afraid of canning anymore as a concept. All my jars sealed - we listened to the "ping" of the jars sealing all evening, which was pretty cool.

The bad news is that I put one of these jars in the fridge for a couple of days and then opened it to taste. As I said, it tasted great, but the pickles turned out to be rather limp, which didn't happen with the refridgerator pickles. I think this is because I let the jars sit in the canner while the water was warming and coming to a boil, so they spent WAY too much time in hot water, rather than just being put in for the 10 minutes of boiling time. I want to try again. I'm also thinking I should see if I can do some research to ID the problem so I don't have it again, but to be honest with you I'm a little reluctant to Google "limp pickle". Heaven only knows what I might end up with.

I guess that more or less wraps up the week. I had my first sweet potato bloom this week. How surprising and lovely. I didn't know they would bloom. (Duh).

I am going to have a melon before this coming week is up, I just know it.

Here's one of the harvests I brought in one day this week. That yellow taxi is still alive and pumping out ripe tomatoes.

And here's some veggies we had for dinner! Yum!