I haven't spent much time in the garden since Thursday. We have had two storms come in. One lasted all Friday (over 1 1/2") and Saturday (over 2") and today we are getting the remnants of Kyle. It has been raining constantly. On Saturday I went outside when the rain let up a bit so I could pick my raspberries. As soon as I was done the rain started again so I ignored the vegetable garden.
Today I went out to pick during a slow drizzle. I was surprised the cherry tomatoes weren't cracked from the rain. I had picked all the ones that were half ripe on Thursday to avoid this. A lot more were ripe, but only one had cracked. The cucumbers had swelled up and I picked five. One was absolutely huge. The foliage looked bedraggled. The mildew is taking over faster then the cukes are growing now. It is only a matter of time, but still they set cukes, tasty ones at that.
I was trying to pick stuff quickly and forgot about my snowpeas, so had to go back out for that. The rain had picked up by then so I hurried. The pods were HUGE. They are four inches long. This must be why they are called Mammoth Melting Sugar. The vines had taken off too. I've been pinching them back when they reach 6-7' to try to keep them under control. I haven't been succeeding well. I had to start tying them up to the trellis since the wind was knocking them off.
I was soaked, but at least I got things mostly picked.
The Boston Globe, our local paper, had a few articles about local farming in the NorthWest section. One was about our very rainy weather this year and how it has hurt the harvest, especially the tomato harvest. I've found my tomato harvest to be really bad too. Though the Sungolds seem to put out alright, the others have been slow. Now much of that is from the chipmunks eating them so they have had two problems. Other than the tomatoes I've actually found that this year things have grown better than usual. The plants really loved the rain. The lettuce and cucumbers were particualarly spectacular producers and my raspberry season has been the best in years. Sadly the slug production has been huge too, so I have huge holes in my Asian greens, but you can't have everything.
I can relate to the rain this summer although our fall has been pretty dry here in Southern Ontario. My tomatoes were also not the best this year, I found they went really mushy from all the rain.
ReplyDeleteNice snow peas, I bet they are destine for a stir fry.
Only eastern Massachusetts has gotten all the rain in September. We have had a couple of good storms that have moved up the coastline. The western part of the state has gotten very little.
ReplyDeleteOh yes. The peas ended up in a stir fry last night along with some left over chard ribs.
That's a beautiful borage portrait! The deer ate most of mine this year. I can't blame them I'm fond of borage blossoms myself.
ReplyDeleteHi! Found you via Henbogle and I love your blog! I'm a fellow MA gardener who is still learning, so I'm always so pleased to see people who do it better than I do!
ReplyDeleteMy Sungolds did especially well this year too, but all my other Toms were awful.
Love the borage photo!!! And please send a little rain our way. We haven't had any since Feb or March.
ReplyDeleteBecky: Thank you. I'm so glad I don't have deer in my garden. They can be such a pest.
ReplyDeleteTaylor: Oh I love finding other people in the New England area with blogs and yours is wonderful.
Green Bean: I wish I could send you some of that rain. 5+ inches is a bit too much. Half that much would have been plenty.