The Modern Victory Garden

It’s the middle of August and I have a tomato patch filled with lots of GREEN tomatoes.

The Siletz tomatoes growing in containers have been providing some occasional ripe tomatoes but even these have slowed way down recently due to a prolonged spell of rainy and cool weather.   Luckily, the weather has warmed back up today and is forecasted to stay that way for at least a four-day period, so there is some hope that the Siletz will begin ripening up again soon and that the green tomatoes might move along towards ripening as well.   It is worrisome though that we are so far into the summer season and this far behind on the tomato crop.   The tomato plants are starting to show signs of age and disease as they are want to do late in the summer season.   On various plants there is leaf curling, on yet others some lower leaf yellowing, and the Siletz tomatoes have some grey mold and fungus problems.   In an effort to keep the diseases at bay for as long as possible and encourage the plants to shift energy into fruit ripening, I did a hard prune on the large tomato patch today. 

This is the patch as I was just getting started on the pruning this morning.   I had removed the yellowed and blotchy looking leaves from the lower portion of two of the Early Girls.                          

I worked my way down the bed removing problem looking leaves and stems, and cutting the growing tips off of the tall vines so that they would quit growing skyward and perhaps put more plant energy into the fruit ripening process.   I wiped my garden snips with disinfectant often and washed my hands with antibacterial soap and water frequently as well – so as not to spread potential diseases or fungus problems from plant to plant.   Here’s how it looked when I finished. 

After I was done with the pruning work, I watered all of the tomatoes thoroughly because the weather is indeed going to be quite warm for a few days.   The combination of pruning, deep watering, and a really warm sunny day – seemed to perk the patch up tremendously.                           

This is the time of year where the potato patch starts looking really awful as it goes into the vegetation die back phase.   The earlier maturing potatoes are further along in the die off process than the later maturing Russet Burbank, but all of them are withering down at this point and in about three weeks, they will be ready for the big lift of the potatoes for storage.                           

While most of the garden crops have been really late this year, the potatoes are actually right on schedule.   My initial digs into the patch for fresh eating potatoes has been quite encouraging.   I think the John Jeavon’s planting method I used this year is going to prove quite productive, but only the final big harvest and weigh in will tell.                               

In the previous picture you may have noticed a large patch of beans growing to the left of the potato patch.   That is the patch of Dark Red Kidney beans and they are coming along nicely.                                      

The purple podded bush beans are producing now too and I picked a nice large colander of them today which I later blanched and then froze.   Picked a few more yellow zucchini to add to my growing pile of zucchinis in the fridge as well.             

I am getting a few cucumbers off and on now too.   Not enough to do anything serious with but I have been slicing them up and dropping them into the refrigerator dill pickle solution and gobbling them up almost immediately afterwards!    

I am hoping to do some berry picking at a local u-pick farm tomorrow - to freeze for our winter use.   We have strawberries, blueberries, and raspberries ripening on our home plants, but they are getting eaten as fast as they ripen and never even make it into the house for weighing.   Its going to be a hot one tomorrow so we will be getting it done early before it gets too hot to be out picking.   It’s a good thing they do not weigh us before and after we do the picking as I think we end up eating almost as much as we take home every year!                       

Keep Cool                  

Laura

kitsapfreedomgardener