Wow! Can I come for dinner? What a beautiful harvest, you must be so proud. Nice work, and thanks for inspiring those of us who are still building our beds, and trying to learn what to plant where and when. It's encouraging to see such success!

Nice! I've been getting a few tomatoes but they are coming in one at a time. My squash seeds did not germinate, dunno what went wrong but I'm having to buy my zucc's, crooknecks and spaghetti squashes this year.

Impressive! Thanks very much for sharing part of your harvest with us. Everything looks GREAT! What's the one squash looking guy snaking around on the right, just to the left of the cherry tomatoes? Is it a long skinny butternut squash? Whatever it is, it and everything else, looks GREAT!

Good job!
Take care,
Grant

Might be trombancino, not sure I've spelled it right. Waiting......

Thanks for the complements. This has not been a typical days harvest. Some things like the tomatoes are ripening up at a faster pace than they have been. For other things like the squash we are a few days late in picking because we already had more than we could eat.

In a couple more days I will have loads of Yardlong beans and Bush Beans and tons of both sweet and hot peppers. There are also three kinds of carrots and two kinds of beats. Everyone in the family is looking forward to the melons though. Roughly 40 melon plants with many different specialty varieties. There are melons everywhere and we are expecting to harvest somewhere around 300-400 melons.

Grant, marymcp is right. Thats a trombancino.

marymcp did you press the soil around the seeds with your hands or a hoe after planting? if you didn't remember to next time. You want as much of the soil to be in contact with the seed as possible for even moisture distribution. Even so most the seeds I started in the ground either did not make it or took a long time germinate. The second batch did great though. Afterwords I took note that I was supposed to have the soil in for two months before planting because the manure in the Sandy Loam Mix was dried and had not been fully composted.

As time goes by I'm learning a lot. Below is a sample.

I will soak all of my bean seeds before planting from now on.

For sure I will be planting less summer squash next year.

I will plant fewer tomato pants so the pruning will not become such a burden.

I will thin the root crops all at once after they come up instead of a little at a time like the author of The Gardeners Bible recommends.

I will put up a short wire fence between melon varieties making it easier to keep them from competing with each other inside the raised beds.

I will scrap the Bush Type Cucumber that is already 6'X6' and still growing in favor of the Armenians which I like just as much.

I will not try to grow fruiting plants in the winter where they do not get full day sun. I will plant leafing plants there instead.

Wow! Very nice!
When did you start your tomatoes and peppers (you started from seed, right?) and when did you set them outside?
I'm just starting to get a cherry tomato here and there and one or two pepper blossoms, but no fruit yet. I have them on an east-facing wall b/c true full sun was burning them, even back in April when it wasn't so hot out. But now I'm wondering if it's not enough sun, and that's why there's so little fruit, or if it's just my timing.

jeff I started them from seed way to early this year and put them in a portable green house. By to soon I mean I started them December 15th 2010.lol The tomatoes were over 4' tall when I planted them. I planted the bottom 2'+ in the ground. Next year if I need to start any new tomatoes or peppers I will wait until January 15th to start them. I may not start any new seeds next year though. If I want more plants of the ones I have I will just root some cuttings. Better yet I can cover their trellis's and put the heater in it that was in the 8'X10' greenhouse last season and over winter the plants and use them again next year.

How do you like those Cherokee purples? I started mine from seed in Feb and they are just the best tomatoes Ive ever tasted. I'm going to be putting everything else in sauce, I like the CPs so much!
Which cherries do you have? I'm growing Reisentraube. They are big and good looking but still not ripe. Must be a late season variety. Hoping they are a good taster like most late season maters are.

Awesome harvest, thisisme.

tracydr the Cherokee Purples are tasty indeed. I'm growing these cherries; Black Cherry, Sungold, Husky Red Cherry and Juliet. Juliet is not really a cherry tomato though. Its a nearly chicken egg sized Roma type hybrid variety.

Thanks wabikeguy. I know how to grow vegetables. Now I just have to learn what to do with all of them.lol

Amazing harvest!

Can we get a picture of your vege garden?

What fertilizer do you use and how often?

raimeiken if you click on the picture in my first post it will take you to my Photobucket.com album. There you can see roughly one third of my garden. Everything on that table was harvested from part of that one third. The garden pictures in the album are all roughly 6-8 weeks old. I will try to take some more pictures in a few days and add them to the album.

I fertilize at planting and through the drip irrigation system. In September when I pull everything and replant I will use a cultivator and work in a little palletized 21-0-0 Ammonium Sulfate and some Alfalfa Pellets. I run Fertilome 20-20-20 through the drip irrigation system. Just guessing but as much water as there is running though the system when I fertilize I would say its diluted down to something like 2-2-2 by the time it gets to the plants. I have fertilized only twice though this season through the drip irrigation system. One of those times the water was on for the tomatoes when fruit was roughly between dime and nickle sized.

NICE! thanks for all the info :)

I love using the alfalfa pellets, too. Between that and horse manure, I'm having a bumper crop. My 5 week old corn is over 5 feet tall!

I love your Cherokee Purples. I grew them for the first time this year and they are delicious, but mine are all catfacing as they ripen even though I have kept the watering even. Was wondering how you got such beauties that didn't crack.

raimeiken I put some new pictures in my photobucket account tonight that I took on the 15th. My camera always over emphasizes the yellows. I don't know why. Forgive the mess. My garden is still very much a work in progress.

tracydr let me know how your corn does. I'm thinking about planting some in one of my side yards next year.

panwasmom I'm still learning. Early on I thought I had BER but it was really the bottoms splitting and healing up from over watering. Then I watered more and it got worse. Then I cut back on the water and had better results. Still far from perfect. The thing is I have a few squash plants on the same drip line as the main tomato bed. The squash need more water than my tomatoes do. This is in part because I planted the bottom 2' of the tomato plants below grade so they have great root systems.

What I'm going to try now is....

Cutting back on watering the tomatoes even more.

Only watering the tomatoes in the evening when its cooler and they're less likely to split.

Fun discussion! Thanks to you and Mary for the squash ID. Neat! I didn't do any tomatoes this year for the first time in a long time, so I'm envious of your great harvest. When I do grow them, I stick to small ones as they're not as likely to split from swelling/shrinking due to water update variations--I love Sungold and good ol' yellow pear tomatoes the best.

Great job, thanks for this great discussion!
Take care,
Grant

Thisisme, thank you so much for posting the photos of your beautiful garden. I have serious garden envy :) What are the plants that are overtaking your fruit trees in the corner of your yard? I'm assuming some sort of squash or melons?

plstqd in the corner before you get to the root crops there are....

4 Hale's Best Cantaloupe
2 Ambrosia Cantaloupe
6 Dixie Queen Watermelon
4 Golden Casaba
4 Waltham Butternut Squash

There are rows of mulch which I train the vines to grow on so I can walk between the rows and pick them. There are also lots of other specialty melon varieties throughout the garden that grow on short (3.5'-6') vines.

Grant out of the tomato varieties I grew this year only Juliet was totally impervious to splitting. Next came Husky Red Cherry then Sungold and then Black Cherry. True to what you said the larger tomatoes tend to split though watering less helps. Hopefully when its cooler the Fall crop will fair better.

Very impressive! How large is your gardening space? I hope you've been enjoying delicious meals:)

Kelly_girl I have roughly 540sqft of raised beds and lots of space for vines to spill out on. There are four adults in my household. So far I have had some really nice meals. However no one else in the house has so much as cooked a single item from the garden. They will not eat anything if they have to cook it or clean up after. I'm disabled and the garden is more than I can handle so I can't cook for everyone. My son helps me pick the vegetables but almost everything is going into the compost heap which is very disappointing.

On the other hand everyone loves my zucchini bread. They say they would buy it if it were sold in a store if I didn't make it. I make 3-6 loaves a week and can't seem to get any stored in the freezer for winter. I'm definitely going to have to change what I grow next year. Everyone in my family will eat melons so I will have a melon garden and then a small garden just for me. I'm thinking 400sqft for melons and butternut squash and 140sqft for everything else for me. I wish it were different but it is what it is and I'm just going to have to learn to live with it.

Wow, that's a real shame. Have you thought about contacting the food banks, or a local school? They might be very happy to have your beautiful produce.

plstqd we have been giving away a bag of vegetables a week at church but thats about it. The twice weekly harvests are a LOT MORE than that. At this point the summer squash and tomatoes are in their waining days of production but still way more than I can eat alone. In a few more weeks the summer squashes will all be about done unless I replant. When they are done I was thinking of leaving the ground fallow until I plant the winter crops in a couple of months. Between now and then I was thinking of asking some of our neighbors if they would like some garden grown vegetables. There have been a lot of foreclosures and short sales on our street and a lot of others are still for sale. I'm sure there must be a few families that could use a bag or two per week. Another 3-4 weeks and the melons and winter squashes will start ripening up. Then I will have something my family will eat.

Wow. That's a nice sized garden. What a bummer that no one else will cook. I hope you're able to find someone or somewhere to enjoy the harvest.

Throwing harvest in the compost pile?! I'm getting choked up and misty eyed here... I would weep tears of joy if I could harvest that picture this whole entire season. I'm losing a Gopher War. My garden is mostly cherry tomatoes and I just harvested a bunch of potatoes. After too much squash in past years we planted less and for whatever reason the plants this year aren't doing as well.

I've got a 15 year old who just got her drivers permit and we're spending tons of time in the car for her to get practice...she needs it! SO, if you happen to be anywhere in Tucson or Marana, and want any help harvesting or total confidence that your produce won't go to waste, please contact me! :)

Seriously...nicely done! Bags of larger tomatoes, wow. That picture gives me hope. My eyeballs almost popped outta my skull and I darn near spilled my ice water on my lap. Beautiful.

Also the community food bank would love to take and consign any surplus. We've donated quail and chicken eggs to them before.

Thissime- I made something so easy with very young pattypan and tomato the other day. Maybe your family would eat it since it's pasta-like. Slice the squash and tomatoes in a large microwavable bowl. Add about one tbsp butter per two cups of veggies.one clove garlic or some garlic powder. Some dried basil or top with fresh after cooking. Microwave for five minutes or until tender squash but not soggy. Top with fresh grated Parmesan, fresh basil if you have it. Five minutes for a yummy meal!
Trick is to use those patty pans about the size of a small woman's palm, no larger.

Thanks for the recipe tracydr.

Yesterday I made a couple quarts of Hot Sauce with ingredients from the garden. Yesterday my son picked a bag of cucumbers and a bag a squash. Today I noticed one of the Cantaloupes was starting to turn golden and the largest watermelon is about 16"X12" already. It won't be long now.

Today my wife felt the inspiration to pick SunGold's, Black Cherry and Juliet's to make a spaghetti/lasagna sauce with. When she was to tired to pick anymore there were still a lot more Sungold's and Juliet's to be picked. The Juliet's are still flowering and setting fruit like crazy so I guess we will be having a steady supply till frost.

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I noticed a lot of my tomatoes that weren't flowering, started flowering and setting fruit this week because I shortened watering intervals and time. I guess they like less water more often!