The 2010 Harvest is Underway

It's cooler than normal for June this year. Harvest is well underway, and will accelerate in the next few weeks. We've had tomatoes, turnips and beans. We've had our first stone fruits. And we're getting lots of squash. Below is a photo of some of our early harvest, along with my current favorite hoe, a little triangular one. I also loved my Dad's little crescent-shaped scuffle-hoe, but I've never seen one like it since.

Pests and Diseases

 We seem to have Tobacco Mosaic Virus in the yard, particularly in F's volunteer tomatillos.  It's spread by touch to all sorts of plants - tomato, pepper, bean, squash, cucumber, melon - just about everything we have planted.  Plus ornamental flowers and weeds related to beets (like lambs quarters) and those in the ubiquitous Amaranth family.  If plants are not infected early, it usually stunts rather than kills them.

Hope we can convince F that smoking around the plants and touching them actually does spread the disease.  Next year, we may need to think of a way to restrict his activities to his own part of the garden without breaking his heart.   Tests show that dipping one's hands in milk before handling plants can reduce the spread of the disease.  Sometimes plants are also sprayed with milk.  I have no clue why this would reduce the spread of an RNA virus.  F. doesn't believe that the disease cannot be cured with a "medicine" or that it is spread by touch.  He does believe that you can kill a horse by stepping on a scorpion, even if you're a football field away from the horse.  It's a challenge to introduce new ideas to him. 

Tobacco Mosaic can be seed-borne, which means that my plans for saving seeds and trying a few hybrids may be scaled back.  It is persistent in plant debris and soil where plant parts are not fully decomposed.

Squash Bugs have a good start now on our squash plants.  They like watermelon plants, too.

First Stone Fruits, 2010

We had a difficult spring for stone fruits this year - lots of rain during blossom time. For the first time, fruit set was sparse on Flavor Delight Aprium. Also on Royalty and Golden Amber apricots, plus my favorite, Harcot. Not much going on with Canadian White Blenheim, either, but this is no surprise, as it needs a late pollinator and is in a marginal zone for winter chill here.

On the other hand, we got a good fruit set on Blenheim apricot, a disease-prone variety. And it is starting to ripen before temperatures reach 100 degrees - unusual around here. No pit burn. It's a great fruit if you're in a climate which is friendly to it.   For example, if you live in Santa Rosa, in what was once called "The Valley of Heart's Delight" based partly on the fruits grown there.  Various apricot varieties can be quite picky about the climates they prefer.  Apricot success here  this year is all about the weather.

Back to the start of the harvest season: Our first fruits were little Royal Rosa apricots. They were better this year than in the past. I think that their water was restricted a little as they ripened. They also need to be dead-ripe before you pick them, or they are bland.

Next came Flavor Delight Apriums - nice fruits - and Royalty (Not Royal), a big, mushy fruit on wind-resistant spurs which David likes because it reminds him of his Grandpa's apricots.

Harcots started soon after Flavor Delight. Not many of them, but they were big and luscious.

Some of them are pictured above with Flavor Delight apriums, a little yellow plumcot (blushing to red) from LE Cooke wholesalers and Arctic Star nectarine. The plumcot is an interesting fruit: soft and tender.  It loses quality when it goes beyond yellow with a little blush. It has a little bit of a delicate floral flavor. At its best, it's sweet, but can also tend toward being insipid. I think of them as resembling a wild fruit. Wild fruits seem to come in two main types - highly flavored and tart or even astringent, or slightly sweet and tending toward the insipid. This fruit is closer to the latter category. Some people really like them a lot. I think they would be good combined with cranberries for a less-assertive sauce.

They tend to ripen over a very short period of time, especially in years hotter than this one. The tree is compact and attractive, with nice leaves and showier blossoms than most plums grown for fruit. It's easy to care for. It blooms late in the plum season here, and it may cross-pollinate Emerald Beaut - a prized variety of plum. It takes a few years to start blooming, and often blooms on main branches.

Arctic Star white nectarine (the reddish fruit in the picture) are one of breeder  Floyd Zaiger's great family of super-sweet fruits. They can be enjoyed firm-ripe or soft and very sweet. The fruits should be thinned more than I thinned them this year, given ample water until they start to ripen, and protected from insects through dormant spraying, garden cleanup, etc. This will help prevent the bitter almond off-flavors and stunted fruits which can occur in white nectarines.

Squash Report, June 2010

Once squash plants start to produce, they tend to keep producing quickly, until they "run out of steam" from producing so much fruit so fast. The colander above features my favorits variety, "Magda", a Lebanese or "Cousa" type light, club-shaped zucchini from France, plus several yellow squashes: Saffron Prolific - a shallow crook-neck, Butterstick - merging from straightneck to yellow zucchini, and Cougar - disease-resistant. Plus the zucchinis Kojac (few spines on plants) and Diplomat - a dark green variety. I don't seem to have any surviving Sweet Zuke, a club-shaped dark green zucchini from Burpee which often breaks when you pick it.

The yellow squash with the green end is from one of F's volunteer plants - looks like a child of Magda and Zephyr, a remarkable summer squash with some winter squash in its breeding. Your chances of getting squash of quality comparable to the parent plants from seeds taken from a mixed planting of summer squash are not good. Especially when you started with F1 hybrids. The F2 generation often produces some oddities. The bicolor squash in the photo, for example, has a larger seed cavity than its probable F1 parents. The doesn't mean you couldn't get something nice from deliberately crossing two open-pollinated varieties to get your own F1 hybrid.

I used most of the squash in this colander, plus some already in the house, to make two big skillets full of variations on this recipe. One included a diced Ancho (Poblano) pepper, ground red pepper and Pepper Jack cheese. The other included bacon and was topped with Colby/Jack cheese. I think I like a medium or sharp cheddar better than Colby/Jack for this recipe, but you can vary ingredients to taste.

Below is the row of squash we planted. Some of F's volunteers (not pictured) are already turning yellow and sickly, and are ready to be removed from the garden. They're scattered in odd places. He also planted winter squashes of unknown parentage. Good hosts for next year's crop of squash bugs. He seems devoted to growing them, though. Gives them to friends in the fall.

We already have big adult squash bugs mating, plus nymphs. They can get out of hand fast. Grateful we don't have squash vine borers or cucumber beetles.

First Tomatoes and Beans, Last Summer Turnips 2010

Well, our first tomato was a little currant tomato, variety "Sweet Pea". Not bad. There were also a couple from a mis-identified "Fourth of July" plant that turned out to be a tiny, crunchy grape tomato - Not outstanding. We had a Stupice tomato ripening, but lost it, along with a few others of the 61-plus plants we planted. Interestingly, all of the plants lost were either purchased rather than started by us, were over-wintered or were planted where a diseased plant came out.

Our second harvest includes a few tiny Sweet Pea and "Fourth of July Mystery" tomatoes, plus one larger (still not very big) real "Fourth of July" tomato.  They're pictured above with the last of the "Summer Turnips", variety - Oasis.  Still good.  Only a hint of the off-flavors which develop in turnips during hot weather.  We've had variable weather this spring, but it's been cooler than normal lately, in the 70s and 80s during the day.

Also pictured, pole beans "Fortex", perhaps the best pole bean in the world, and a heat-tolerant variety, "Champagne".  A bean specialist gave me some seeds to try.  I only planted a few plants, as pole beans are usually marginal on our spring weather.  I typically like them small, but a few got away from me, going to the "beany" stage that David's Mom likes.  There's also a sprig from the "Grenada" pomegranate, with a baby fruit and blossoms.  Not enough tomatoes to provide color.  They needed some help.  We should have a bunch soon.

Honors for Biggest Green Tomato go to "Anna Maria's Heart".  This is a surprise, as it is listed as a late variety.  Healthiest-looking Plant award goes to "Nyagous", a smallish "black" tomato.

Update June 15:    Anna Maria's Heart produced a ripe tomato.  It had been squished against the fence support, and had some bad spots.  This is the first time I've grown oxheart tomatoes.  I think I'm going to like this one.  Sweet and meaty so far.  It's pictured below with what is probably "Sweet Million" plus some more currant and grape tomatoes in the little bowl and "Sweet Quartz" (a Japanese cherry tomato named for the color of Rose Quartz) on top of the beans.

'Champagne' pole bean is out-producing 'Fortex'. Champagne is a flatter bean and has strings - just like old-time string beans with less-elegant names like 'Turkey Craw' or 'Blue Greasy Grit'. I hope to try Fortex again in the fall.

The difference in hue between the "pink" Anna Maria's Heart and Sweet Quartz and the "red" tomatoes in the bowl is not particularly evident in the picture, but the "pink" tomatoes have less yellow pigment in the skin when fully ripe.  The "Sweet Millions" pictured here were sweet and a little on the mealy side.  Hard to judge quality on these first tomatoes.  "Sweet Quartz" was juicier with more complex flavor.  It's large for a cherry tomato.

Below is a row of our tomato plants with the June 15 vegetable harvest.  "Nyagous" is in front, with dark foliage to go with its dark-colored tomatoes.  There are four of these rows, plus extra plants along the dog-run fences.

I was successful at emasculating some blossoms for hybridization, but not at drying and transfering pollen.  I'll probably skip further  hybridization experiments until next year because of the tobacco mosaic virus in the yard.  We will likely lose the "Brandywine OTV and "Haley's Purple Comet" to disease.  I think I can get some fruits from the latter variety first.

More melons, second-string tomato plants

We have lost three tomato plants: The Red October which lived over the winter in a little cup did not make it in the garden. I replaced it with Stupice a while ago. The Winter Red which similarly lived over the winter was apparently eaten by a gopher. It was replaced today with an extra plant of "Barbara", which had developed a few lesions on the lower leaves while waiting to be planted, like some of our other remaining plants in pots. "Mortgage Lifter" (from Target, I think), was sickly yellow and had lesions which looked like the pictures of Alternaria. It was replaced today with either Sweet Million or Sweet Olive, depending on which tag you believe. I guess the plant habit will have to provide clues as to which one it is.

Also prepared mounds for and planted more melons: Oka, Sweet Honda, Extra Summer Sweet, Lilly, Early Sugarshaw. Had some help from a little boy for whom gophers were a great mystery. Kind of slowed me down, but that's what little kids are for.

Skillet Chicken Fried Rice

Quick to make. Serves 2. Triple or quadruple the recipe in a big electric skillet.

3/4 pound boneless, skinless chicken breast
Up to 2 Tablespoons vegetable and/or sesame oil
1/2 cup long grain white rice
2 medium cloves garlic, crushed
1 teaspoon ground ginger OR grated fresh ginger to taste
1/8 to 1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes or ground red pepper (optional)
1 3/4 cup chicken broth (14 oz. can)
1 Tablespoon low-sodium soy sauce
1 cup frozen peas
1/4 cup chopped parsley and/or 2 or 3 minced scallions with tender tops.

1. Cut chicken in 1/2 inch (or larger) cubes. Crush garlic and grate or mince fresh ginger, set aside. Prepare other ingredients.

2. Saute chicken in a large skillet (a skillet you can cover) over medium-high heat, in up to 1 Tablespoon of the oil, for about 2 minutes, until very lightly browned (maybe a little longer for larger pieces) . Remove chicken to a bowl. This time, I put some Pappy's Seasoning on the chicken at this point. It was frozen/thawed chicken and I thought it could use a flavor boost (mustard, celery seed, pepper, coriander, paprika, fines herbes, etc.)

3. Add up to 1 tablespoon of oil to the skillet and saute the rice until toasted and lightly browned, about 3 minutes. This step keeps the finished rice fluffy and separate, with a texture sort of like Spanish rice.

Add garlic and saute for one minute. Add chicken broth, soy sauce, ginger and red pepper. Cover, bring to a boil and reduce heat to medium (or the temperature which produces simmering in the pan you are using). Simmer for 15 minutes.

4. Add peas and cooked chicken to skillet, cover and simmer for 2 or 3 minutes - a little more for larger pieces of chicken, if you're worried that they're not done. Taste the rice, toss in salt and pepper to taste (I didn't need any) along with the parsley and/or scallions. You may also flavor with a little light or dark sesame oil if desired. David doesn't like dark sesame oil, and I just used vegetable oil in the recipe.

NOTE: If the lid to your pan is very tight, you may be able to reduce the liquid slightly, especially if multiplying the recipe. You can also use part water in place of broth in a pinch.

Allergy information: Check soy sauce and chicken broth for wheat or corn products.

Finally planted melons

Planted melons in hills rather than rows this time. We'll see if F will let us restrict water as they ripen this way. Plants were a little over-grown in their Root Trainers. Hope they aren't stunted too much. Our weather is about to turn hotter.

Planted Extra Summer Sweet, Early Sugar Shaw, Savor, Summer Dream and Lilly.