Harvesting Vegetables - #2

Welcome back. Now that I have returned from my vacation in the Canadian Maritimes, I will focus again on the garden. I will re-visit our vacation and write a few additional posts on that as i get time. I hoped you enjoyed the vacation posts as well.

I returned to Central NY State to find the garden flourishing. It was evident that we had received adequate rain in the two weeks I was gone. It's amazing how much the garden changes in 2 weeks. Most noticeable were the tomatoes, which almost looked out of control. Even though I used tomato cages, some were starting to tip from the heavy plants, so i used some stakes to support them.

As you can see, the tomatoes in the foreground have all grown together. The good news is that they are starting to ripen. I have picked the heirloom varieties of Cherokee Purple, Green Zebra, and Yellow Pear, which I started myself from seed. Also the Juliet tomatoes are ripening which are a cross between a grape and a Roma. I purchased theses plants, and they are loaded with fruit. For more information on the heirloom tomatoes I started from seed, see Planting Heirloom Tomatoes.

Juliet Tomatoes:

Yellow PearTomatoes:

The following photo also shows the Cherokee Purple tomatoes, the larger ones.
It also shows some Stuttgart onions and peppers. These veggies were all picked from the upper garden.

From the lower garden, I dug a hill of Yukon potatoes since it was one of the original hills I planted, and the vines had died off. As you remember, I had to re-plant the potatoes up to three times, and still they didn't all come up due to the extremely wet conditions this Spring. In the end the potato patch is a mix of Yukon Gold and Gold Rush, the later being a white potato with a yellow skin.

The Yukon gold potatoes shown were delicious, as I used them to make home fries this past weekend.

This next photo shows the potatoes and also the pumpkins, which are coming nicely. There will be 6 or 8 to pick, and they are starting to turn.

I will leave you with another harvest basket photo, with an added bonus of a beautiful hydrangea flower.

Thanks for visiting.