Wednesday, June 8, 2011

Harvest Day


We are starting to get some fruit off of some of our warm season plants. Here are some shots of yesterday's bounty.

The good stuff first. It's all picked a little small but removing some of the first fruits when they are a little small seems to help the plant produce more and bigger fruits as time goes on. All of this was delicious.

Italian Zucchini
Space Master Cucumber
Big Bertha Peppers

And then the bad. Our very first tomato looked too tasty for a worm to pass by. The little jerk entered through the backside of the fruit, so we didn't know until our mouths were watering for our very first taste of tomato, and we pulled it off the plant.

First tomato included some extra protein

We also had a pepper with some rot but it was not on the blossom end so it did not appear to be blossom end rot, which is caused by a calcium deficiency in your soil.

Rot on pepper

Gidget was so upset about our first tomato, she couldn't even look.

I packed up my rotten fruit and headed over to my favorite place in San Diego; City Farmers Nursery. I figured they would have fun commiserating with me about it, and maybe enlighten me further, as to what went wrong. Kelly was absolutely ecstatic about cutting open the tomato so she could find the worm. I worry about her sometimes. We didn't find the worm but we did find a lot of worm poop. Next time you're at City Farmers find Kelly and ask her the technical name for worm poop in a tomato, I forgot my notebook, so I can't remember what she called it. 

Another woman at the nursery was happy to eat the half of the tomato that did not appear pooped in, and said we should be congratulated because it was delicious. I hope to give you a first hand account about the tastiness of our tomatoes very soon.

As far as the pepper, it appears as though the rain we recently had collected on the pepper, and when the hot sun came over the roof, it burned the pepper causing the rot. 

3 comments:

  1. Crystal, I just love the pictures of Gidget that you're posting! I can't bear to look, either...not when that jerk worm ruined your beautiful tomato! Your zucchini, cucumber, and peppers are gorgeous! I have Spacemaster cucumbers in my garden, too, but of course they're nowhere near ready for harvest here in Indiana. I borrowed your trellising idea for our cucumber bed. :) Rod added the wooden posts, and now all I need to do is attach the trellis netting. I wasn't as creative as you...I bought netting instead of making my own. It won't be beautiful like yours, but it did save me some time. :)

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