Pictured below, our second cucumbers from the garden (we ate the Cool Breeze before taking a picture). The ridged one in front is Suhyo TK. The one in back is our standby, Summer Dance. Also pictured are some new tomato varieties. Along the edge of the plate above the Summer Dance cucumber is Rosalita. To their left, a heavily-ridged, squat Aunt Ginny's Purple with blossom end rot on the bottom where you can't see it. Beneath are two Early Challenge fruits and between the cucumbers is a plum-shaped Barbara fruit which probably could have stayed on the vine another day. IDs continue below the photo.
Beneath the blossom end of the Suhyo TK cucumber is a little Fourth of July fruit and our largest fruit so far, other than Cosmonaut Volkov, First Lady II. Lined up against the cucumber are three Berkeley Tie-Dye fruits. You may not be able to see the stripes, but there is some faint striping. The smaller fruits in front are Yellow Submarine, Black Cherry and Pop-Ins.
The plate is next to one of F's squash plants. He seems to have planted them where they will overtake many of the plants we planted. He believes that any seed which naturally sprouts in the garden will produce better than a "foreign" seed. At one time, when people planted single varieties, this may have been true. But we get some strange squashes from the F2 generation, offspring of hybrids from the year before.
First Cucumbers
Cool Breeze: Short, stubby gherkin, probably a little larger than you would pick for sweet pickles. Light color. Very crispy, sweet. The plants are not happy where they are planted. Don't think I will get many more fruits. Produces before many other varieties, but is not a heroically heat-tolerant variety like Summer Dance. It needs to be grown on a trellis here.
Suhyo TK: Deeply ridged. Did not peel. Trace of bitterness at stem end, astringent (not in a particularly unpleasant way, tender). Would be a good variety for making cucumber facials. Would probably have some bitterness in hotter weather. This is a tough climate for cucumbers.
Summer Dance: As usual, sweet and tender even with the skin on. No bitterness. A great cucumber for our climate.
More Tomato varieties, following up on our first harvest
On June 18 I picked:
Cosmonaut Volkov: A good-sized tomato, tasty and mildly sweet with light red flesh. Peeled easily without blanching (so did a fully-ripe Fourth of July). Assuming that a certain toddler didn't switch the labels when we planted this section.
First impression of tomatoes picked June 22 and 23:
Pop-ins: Variable red pear or teardrop type, bigger than typical yellow pears. Juicy, pleasant.
Rosalita: Rosy grape tomato with tiny white dots. Sweet, nice fruit.
Yellow Submarine: Bigger than the typical yellow pear. Flavorful.
Black Cherry: Very flavorful. Gel around seeds is green, as expected. I liked the fruits with a touch of green on the shoulder best. Lots of "black" tomatoes are ripe when they still show some green. There was no cracking. This variety is known to crack in some conditions.
First Lady II: Hard to peel when raw, OK for an early tomato, kind of bland.
Early Challenge: Smaller than First Lady II, easier to peel, slightly tastier
Berkeley Tie-Dye: Not as much striping as I expected. Gel around seeds is tart, as expected. Soft flesh. Not as flavorful as I expected. Maybe too ripe?
Aunt Ginny's Purple: Not ripe - picked early because of blossom end rot.
Fourth of July: Fruit ripened in warmer weather is sweeter than the first fruit we got. In my past experience, the flavor of this variety has stood out when the weather got hot. Fruits are relatively hard to peel raw unless very ripe. This is a shame, because the skins are tough.
Update, June 26
Stone Fruits: Yesterday, Marcela came by for some spricots. The little fruits from my volunteer tree are flavorful, sweet-tart and firm, sometimes a little tough or crunchy. Seems more and more like the offspring of a commercial variety. Golden Amber is big, very soft and flavorful. Softer and bigger than Blenheim. I'm not so sure that it's immune to pit burn, as described in catalogs, but it's a good late apricot. We didn't get much of an extended harvest this year due to rain during the bloom season.
Today, I picked a peck or so of Blenheim apricots - luxurious this year with more moderate temperatures. Temperatures are warm enough - mid-nineties - to sweeten up the Arctic Star nectarines. The soft ones are really sugary now.
The Santa Rosa plums at the side of the house are ripening, before the few Flavor Supreme Pluots, which normally start ripening first. Santa Rosas are a jolt of tangy flavor, -- too flavorful for some modern tastes.
Cucumbers and squash: I picked a bunch more Summer Dance cucumbers today - smaller than you would see them in the store. More luxury. Not much going on with the other varieties. Lots of squash on now. Magda is prolific. Diplomat and Kojac are both nice, standard green zucchinis. I pulled up a couple of F.'s volunteer plants which had turned yellow.
Tomatoes: More varieties ripe for the first time this year:
Boondocks Mystery: The mis-labeled Boondocks plant turns out to be a mid-sized clear yellow tomato. Somewhat tart. Plant is diaseased, may come out soon.
Brandy Boy Mystery: The second plant with a purchased plant of Brandy Boy turned out to be a big, mealy yellow pear-type tomato.
Beam's Yellow Pear: Tasty, but not as tasty as Yellow Submarine. Both are thicker at the neck than the common little bland, cute-as-a-bug yellow pear tomato.
Napa Grape: Juicy for a grape tomato. Nice flavor.
Jet Setter: Mid-sized, tasty, quite easy to peel without blanching. One was craced at the stem end, the other wasn't
Better Boy: Tasty as usual. A little softer that Jet Setter. I preferred its flavor today.
Moskvich: Picked an under-ripe one with blossom end rot. Ditto Cosmonaut Volkov, from my first plant. The one picked from the fence resembles it in appearance, so it was probably identified correctly.
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