Saturday, August 27, 2011

Hurricane Haul



 It was eight am. No stop, no tolls.

 Tilden was wide open, with just a few characters hustling toward the shore.

But I went for these. The german stripe has been a disappointment this year and there was no way I was going to allow these two fall to the storm. Bad picture, good fruit. I also picked one that had the slightest blush of yellow on the bottom, where the germans start to ripen first. The remaining greens were left to fend for themselves, including a new flush of brandywine and black russians.

These were my second concern. Plums are determinate, meaning they set fruit in one or two flushes. I had hoped flush one had ripened, but I was forced to pick them a pale blush. I left the greens knowing a strong gale may drop them from the vine, much as what seemed the earthquake had done the other day. Truly, a mysterious pile of greens under the bush the morning after the quake.

I hate picking fruit before ripe, and there are camps on the practice of picking, I know. I would have left these another week.

The haul. Several carrots, a pile of semi-red plums, green beans of course, a few eggplants, mysterious and small self-dropping poblanos, parsley, basil, and those two giant striped germans. The basket is always full.

In other beach farm news...It's about to be a tropical storm. We expect some flattening. We expect to pull the green beans after the storm. They will be replaced by surviving broccoli starts.

This is the broccoli I purchased last week in Maine and planted this past Wednesday. I decided not to tent them despite the cabbage moths fluttering around. The gale will whip the tent and the tent will whip the broccoli to tatters. They can flatten and survive better on their own.

The cukes were pulled on Wednesday, and now that the wind is about to blow it appears the right decision. In their place, newly planted snap peas, which have not risen yet, and are hopefully waiting out the storm.

Incidentally, next to the flowering cilantro are all the carrot thinnings I attempted to transplant. While they looked pretty sickly at first, they now appear well-adjusted and healthy.

This one is healthy too thanks to the feast of parsley and carrot tops. It appeared that this swallowtail had just emerged, and was clinging without much movement to the fence post. Good luck little buddy.


5 comments:

  1. I fought with myself on whether I should pick the green tomatoes. I decided to also leave the on the vine to fend for itself. I did pick all the maters with a flush of pink, at least they can ripen indoors. I'm just bummed about all the small tomatoes that still needed time to plump up. :(

    Stay safe.

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  2. fingers crossed for you. i hope we are not as hard hit in boston; lots of full-sized green (as in 2 weeks away) tomatoes on my vines.

    covered wee greens seedlings with salt marsh hay to reduce pounding rains' impact.

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  3. I peeked out back this morning and saw the tomatoes I left on the vine. I wasn't sure either about whether to pick them before the storm but I've been picking too many a tad early this year. Last year I found too many on the ground being eaten by insects when I waited too long. I was surprised to see these tomatoes still (literally) on the vine, especially watching my peach tree whip around.

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  4. btw, you have a gorgeous garden. Did I understand your post right that you also have a dog? Are you gardening in your yard? If so, I'm just wondering how you balance the competing demands for space. I find I have to keep my garden out back limited to allow my dog room to run free. This means that I then spread out the garden among three different spaces, which has become a challenge to try to tend to everything sufficiently. Trying to rethink this for next year. Any thoughts from you or others dealing with the same type of challenge?

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  5. Revel,

    I don't have dog now, but when I was a kid the dog was king and all my gardening was second tier to the dog. Our yard, or more precisely, our landlord's yard is only 10 x 10 in one spot and 3 x 30 in another, so no room for a dog anyway.

    I think the best way to incorporate a dog into a garden is to have a very well-trained dog who runs in prospect park before 9 am. good luck!

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If I do not respond to your comment right away, it is only because I am busy pulling out buckthorn, creeping charlie, and garlic mustard...