August update: Phytopthora in the tomatoes, but the rest is fine

Potato Blight on the tomatoes. Dammit.  Its been raining for all of July in Holland and the plants we had outside have all succumbed to phytopthora. Most of the other gardeners at the complex also have the same problem. Our neighbour also had his potatoes taken out.

But I'll give a run-through about whats happening garden wise.

Tomatoes

We planted a whole range of tomatoes in the spring. On a previous post I mentioned having 32 seedlings in house at one point. Well, they didn't all survive, but most of them made it alright. The weather has been pretty unseasonable this year. April and May were so hot and dry that a bunch of plants died when we planted them out. It wasn't possible to water them every day.

Outside we ended up with 2 Tigerellas, a Black Krim, Brandywine Red, Green Zebra and some Beefsteaks. They were doing well before the vacation.

But all the rain and cold conditions during the last few weeks have taken their toll. All the plants outside have large brown/black spots on the stalks and leaves. Some tomatoes are already turning brown and rotting away on the vine. Definitely a shame. I removed the worst of the plants and threw away outside of the garden complex, and tried pruning all the leaves off and removing any infected branches and tomatoes from the remaining plants. The weather has been a bit warmer the last few days, so I was hoping something would survive. But pretty much everything is worthless so I'll be removing all the plants. Shame.

But on a positive note, we've got the greenhouse tomaters. A tigerella, black krim, red and yellow brandywine and 4 cherry tomato plants. They're doing well and I haven't seen any blight.

Tigerella

The first ripe cherry's.

Pumpkins

The pumpkins have finally settled in and are now creeping across half the garden. There are quite a few small pumpkins on the vines. I'm really hoping that they all do well and we get some decent gourds.

Uchiki Kuri

Butternut Squash

Delicata

Cabbage

We hebben lekker veel koolsorten. En die groeien als kool. Or in other words, we got lots of broccoli, koolrabi, sweetheart cabbage, and red cabbage.  And one cauliflower. But we're very pleased with our one cauliflower, since they had a hell of a time in the spring when everything was constantly being eaten by everything. Our brussel-sprouts plants have also survived the rabbit-onslaught and are progressing. Soon we'll be getting the first sprouts off of them.

Broccoli

Cauliflower

Koolrabi

Sweetheart cabbage

Also the kale (boerenkool: 'farmer cabbage' in Dutch) is ready to be planted. 



Squash and Courgette

Well that's obviously doing perfectly. Rain and more rain with some sun every now and then equals loads and loads of squash and courgette.


Carrots

The carrots have come up nicely. We'll leave them in for a little while longer, but they're more or less harvestable. I think that this one has turned out quite well. It took us two tries to get the seeds going because of the dry conditions in spring.

Aubergines

The eggplants are alright. We don't have as much fruit as I was hoping. But the ones that are coming out look good. Here's a snowy. We topped the plants to try and promote growth of the aub's.

Beans

Purple Queens! Our queen beans are looking good.

The fava beans are more or less done. They were a favorite side-dish this summer.  Fava-bean mash.

Cucumbers

The first few cucumber plants seem to be winding down now. So far we've had about 45 cukes from 4 plants. The 2 extra plants that we planted a month later are now starting to produce on a consistent basis, so we still have a few more cucumbers on the way.

Herbs

Basil, coriander, chives, oregano, lavas, and mint have all been successful. Last year we couldn't get the basil going very well, but I think that was due to the soil conditions. We planted it directly into our heavy-clay soil. This year we had it in pure potting soil and we had no problems.

Mint is obviously super easy. It grows like a weed. We have it in a big plastic crate outside so that it can't spread too far. If you plant it without any boundaries, it will run rampant.

The oregano is from last year, and it just does it's own thing. No real maintenance or care needed. It grows and we grab some as needed.

We leave it out to dry and into the kitchen rack it goes.

Oregano, Basil, Chives, Mint

Mint

Coriander

Onions

And we've pulled up all the onions. The stalks had been knocked over in a storm, so we figured we'd get them out of the ground and into the cupboard. There are quite a few. Onion soup tomorrow.

Onwards to September.

Seedling inventory: Tomatoes, cukes, and aubergines. Full house.

Our kitchen table is slowly becoming over grown. We've got seedlings all over the place. Time to organize them a bit. In another week or 2 we'll put them outside. It's so warm already that most people already have their tomatoes and aubergines in the garden.

So currently there's 9 aubergines (snowy and regular purple ones), 2 cucumbers (with 3 more in the greenhouse), 2 squash, 1 courgette,  20 sweet-corn, 6 pumpkins (delicata, butternut squash, and orange), some cabbage and lettuce shoots, and finally 32 tomato plants (9 different kinds). Big parts of the garden are still empty, but the kitchen is pretty full. At least now we have some decent windows in the house. Our last apartment had the smallest window ever. It was almost depressing. But it's all good now. And it will be good to get all this stuff out of here and into the ground.

So much for eating at the dinner table

9 aubergines and a cucumber

Sweet corn

Tomato corner

From l to r: Brandywine Red, Principe Borghese, Brandywine Yellow,
 Black Krim, Tigerella, San Marzano, Black Cherry, Green Zebra, Red Cherry

Eggplants: Third time's a charm

This will be our 3^rd year with the garden. 2 years ago we rented our little plot in mid-April. We were picturing some sort of idealized, fully functioning garden already cultivated and perfectly manicured into which we could gracefully step and spend the summer harvesting our fully functioning flora.What we got was a small plot with some weeds, grass, and a row of 5 tiny leeks barely alive. But no worries. It was great getting in there and working the ground. Planning what we were going to grow. Figuring out when and where it should be planted. Slowly, things started happening. We made some mistakes, but who doesn’t?

Anyway, where I’m trying to go with this rambling introduction is that the garden we got was not in very good condition. The soil hadn’t been tilled the year before, no organic additions, no compost. Nutrient-poor with bad soil structure. Heavy clay. That stuff was like stone at some points.

 Ugly little things

The aubergines we grew that first year we pitiful. Inedible, unimpressive little things. We’d started them too late. We didn’t even have seedlings going until late April. My garden neighbour had already commented that he didn’t think we’d get much on the plant since aubergines need some time to mature. Well, he was right.

Last year we started everything much earlier. I think we had seedlings started in the 2^nd week of March. Also, we moved last November to a bigger apartment with much larger windows, so we were able to get our plants going at home. We designated a corner of our living room as a plant nursery.

We also decided to plant the eggplants outside instead of the greenhouse. The primary reason was that it was easier in terms of watering. The greenhouse dries out pretty quick, and we don’t always have time to go over there (on the bicycle – this is Holland, remember) and give everything water. Rain makes things easier sometimes.

Getting better

The aubergines turned out quite well. They still weren’t as big as I had hoped. These turned out longer and thinner than what you normally see at the market. We also had a series of heavy storms in early August that knocked over a lot of plants (even being staked out), and that didn’t help.

But this year, we’re going to try again. I’ve definitely come to appreciate eggplants. I can still remember the first time I actually tried them, and how I really couldn’t stand the taste. I was having dinner at a friend’s parent’s house and out of politeness finished everything on the plate, but those eggplants really weren’t appetizing. These days though we eat them at least once a week in some form or other. They say you have to eat something at least 7 times before you actually begin to like the taste. I guess that seems to have worked for me.

We’re also going to grow Snowy Eggplants, the white coloured ones. They look really cool.  Hope it works out. This year I really want to get some new varieties in the garden. And I’m going to put plants in the greenhouse as well as the outside. The idea is to start them mid-february and really get ‘em going. Big, full fruit is what it’s all about.