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.
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| Tigerella |
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| 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.
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| Uchiki Kuri |
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| Butternut Squash |
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| 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.
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| Broccoli |
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| Cauliflower |
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| Koolrabi |
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| 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.
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| Oregano, Basil, Chives, Mint |
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| Mint |
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| 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.
