Saturday, July 19, 2014

Parts of dealing with the garden are frustrating or disheartening -- trying to figure out an efficient way to manage water supply, discovering blossom end rot on the first Amish paste tomato, watching the little pear struggle with fireblight -- but some of it is just plain cool.






I honestly harvested these earlier than I would have in a perfect world; the heat this past week made the plants at the less-well-watered end of the row just keel right over. But there they are! I apparently forgot to note which variety these were, but they're lovely. Deep purple skins, creamy interiors. I planted a pound and I think I got five or six pounds back. Nowhere near enough for a winter's supply, clearly, but I'm treating this as my training wheels year. And tonight I'll make something with the ones whose skins got scraped in the digging. Maybe the purple green beans, too. Food season!

3 comments:

  1. Purple-skinned with white interiors sounds awesome. The ones that are purple all the way through seem to have a weird texture when cooked. If it's any consolation, blossom-end rot isn't contagious, so the rest of your tomatoes might be able to avoid it. Fireblight sounds pretty awful though. :/

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    Replies
    1. Yeah, I am hoping to still salvage a decent harvest! I've bought some lime, also, which will probably nudge the soil pH in a more tomato-friendly direction and also contains a fair bit of calcium, so hopefully that will get into the soil fast enough to help the poor plant feel better.

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    2. Here's hoping - I don't know how fast it'll get taken up, but it's definitely worth a try. The amount of rain in the PNW slowly leaches out things like lime and keeps the soil more acidic than it might otherwise be. Liming in fall is supposed to be helpful, since the rain gets it down into the soil for next year's plants. I'm not great with soil amendments; I tend to rely on my grandmother's advice since she's got waaay more experience.

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