Garden varieties

We are in the middle of a midsummer heat wave and the garden is struggling just a bit. The tomatoes are just starting because we planted them so late, but several other crops have come and gone. It seemed like a good time to make some notes for next year.

Sugar Anne peas

I didn’t like the Sugar Anne sugar peas we had this year. They had a very short window of edibility. They were quite small when we had to pick them, and if we missed one for a couple of days, it was too tough. I don’t remember what we planted last year, but they were better.

The Miragreen bush peas were pretty good. Peas are a lot of work, though for a relatively low yield, but so yummy, I think we will continue to plant them. We managed to freeze some this year with our new vacuum bagger. We are very hopeful that removing the air and sealing the bags will make a big difference in how long they last and how fresh they taste when we use them throughout the winter.

We just buy generic white, yellow and red onion sets, but the soil is key. We planted the red onions along the edge of the garden and they did very poorly. I am convinced that the soil isn’t as well conditioned at the edges. I will have to do a better job of conditioning next season. The problem we have had in the past is in the drying process. Most of the onions have rotted before we could use them in the past, but this year we have been more careful about the drying process. Basically, we knocked all the greens down after about 80% of them had already fallen, then we pulled them out of the ground about two weeks later and let them lay on the fabric between the rows for another week or two. Now they are still outside drying on our deck in partial shade. They have been there for another couple of weeks. Soon we will move them into the garage or basement where it will be cooler and drier still. After that I hope we can find a place to store them where they will last a long time without rotting. We will see how this goes in a few months.

The Early Contender bush beans were early developers and fairly long yielding, but very curvy and not as good for canning, whereas the Derby beans were long and straight and fairly high-yielding but for a shorter time.

The Annie Oakley okra has been amazing. We have had okra for at least the past three weeks and the plants are still going strong. the plants seem very bug and disease resistant. They are still beautiful and flowering every day. The Clemson okra plants are only just starting to produce fruit. They were planted a week or so after the first Annie Oakley and are much taller, but I can’t say much about the yield at this point. When the peas were pulled out, I planted another half row of Clemson. In retrospect I wish I had planted more Annie Oakley, but I think we were out of those seeds.

The Baby Thorogreen and Fordhook Limas which were planted at the same time are both doing well. The plants look strong and each have some three-inch pods, but we haven’t harvested any beans yet.

We haven’t picked any peppers yet as they were planted late like the tomatoes. As usual, we planted a variety like Serano, Hungarian Wax, and some bells that I can’t recall, but they seem slow to develop.

We planted one Asian eggplant variety which has thus far produced only two medium to small purple fruits. This was also planted at a corner of the garden which has probably handicapped the plant.

Sugarbaby corn in its prime

The Sugarbaby corn developed quickly, but not quick enough for the pests. This was our first ever attempt at corn and we only planted three 35-foot rows. The Stink bugs love corn we have discovered. There haven’t been so many Stink bugs in and around the house this summer (so far), but now we know where they all went. We were able to harvest and eat or freeze about a third of the ears, but the rest were too buggy. This was lucky for the chickens because they have gotten most of the rest of the Sugarbaby. They absolutely love the fresh corn. the Peaches and Cream corn is just now at the picking stage. It seems to be less buggy, but that might change in the next week or two. We are trying to pick and eat some every day. The ears are a bit smaller than the Sugarbaby, but still very tasty.