Dirt Farm Rocks

We were anticipating anything as we drove to the beach farm after being away for two weeks. The water being shut off was my main concern, but weeds, toppled plants, bugs -who knows. I practically jogged to the plot. When I arrived to see it I had only one thought -dirt farming is awesome!

It must be because I was without my camera for awhile, as I can only find pictures of our beach farm vegetables posted on August 4th. That was 30 days ago, but not that long ago by some standards.

This was our broccoli one month ago.

This is our broccoli today. About 5 heads were five or six inches across.

I brought my mesh and nylon to wrap the heads and was disappointed that they were so large already -I never expected such rapid growth. But the kicker was that there were no cabbage worms -not one. Where did they go? Two weeks ago there were hundreds of worms in all sizes. Have they all morphed to moths, flown away from their childhood patch?

Tomatoes are growing and growing. Because I didn't do the work for trellising, they are spreading horizontally. So it's no surprise that they are showing signs of blight on the lower leaves.

The hot peppers have grown stout -nice.

These Hungarian yellows are very productive.

These sweet peppers are doing well too. I think they are cubanelle.

Here are the eggplants on the left, beans and sweet peppers on the right. In the back, the cucumber trellis.

We weren't around to teach these guys where to go (that's up) and, as is typical, a mildew has formed. We planted three varieties, and 'Salad Bush" has evaded the mildew the best.

The slender Japanese eggplants are producing well.

The Italians are beginning to produce.

The "infill" bush beans are also gearing up. I seeded these wherever another plant succumbed during the first three weeks (recall on again off again watering).

The garden in context.

The 5 broccoli heads and 6 eggplants we harvested. The tomatoes are from the side yard pots.

Speaking of those side yard pots... It really is something else, growing in pots or planters, without a watering system, without endless soil, with the entrenched diseases. I know that I have not set up an ideal growing environment for all that I've tried to grow. However, the cool weather greens have always done well, and the tomatoes always produce -although late and lightly. Some years the beans have done extraordinarily despite small planters, but not this year. The broccoli and snow peas have never been a success.

What I really want in this very public space is a good looking garden, and by this time, with so much outdoor opportunity left, the vegetables in their pots look decrepit. There's little one can do to overcome it, too. I suppose local is going to have to be 10 miles away -not just outside. I'm very excited to have the beach farm and to see it produce so well in a very short time is heartening. Plans are swelling for next season. Swelling indeed.

Talking The Walk

We left town on Friday for a quick escape from NYC. We went to Providence, RI, then up to Maine to visit the art program where we used to work. Somewhere between Providence and East Madison, Maine, I lost my camera.

I didn't know it until I visited a friend's new vegetable garden. While I was munching on the green beans (hers are way better than ours), I noticed a large-leafed polygonum, or smartweed, growing in the middle of her bush beans. On said smartweed a blasphemously large pile of Japanese beetles. Japanese beetles love to eat foliage of tender plants like green beans, yet there they were munching on this one smartweed. Genius I thought! Allow some smartweed as a trap for these beetles. I ran for my camera. Hey, where's my camera? Missing. Vanished. Gone. Must've left it in Providence?

Insert picture of Japanese beetles eating smartweed here.

On Sunday, after a most blissful post-cold front night in Maine on a lake with good old friends, a dinner raid on the reach-in (the large glass-doored fridge), and a few G&Ts, we headed to Mt. Desert Isle for a night of camping and a hike. On our way we passed a man on Route 2 tapping an 8 foot diameter earth down the highway.

Insert photo of oddball thing here.

At 5 pm we arrived Seawall campground, where we expected to stay, but it was filled. As it sounds, Seawall is right on the ocean and in August, very popular. Fortunately, we found another park campground (that shall remain unnamed) that was not far, one spot available and nearly perfect. We ate non-lobster for dinner at a lousy lobster pound on Rte. 3 and headed back to the camp for an early sleep. At first the stars were visible, then in the early hours of Monday it drizzled some and poured some. Cool breezes blew into our van while we slept, half-naked, without chill. Only Maine could make rain and clouds seductive, desirable.

Insert picture of campground here.

On Monday morning, we returned to the Isle and decided to grab a map from the ranger station at the head of the island. The extra helpful ranger confidently suggested two hiking routes to fill the 2 hours we said we had. We selected the shortest hike, ate breakfast in Southwest Harbor at the place the ranger suggested (Sips) and headed out. Four hours later, climbing the up up up of the northern face of St. Sauveur Mtn., I realized that the ranger did not get a good look at me, or she wanted to teach us a lesson about hiking in Acadia. What she should have said was two hours in, two hours out!

Insert photo of Valley Cove, Somes Sound, and boats, fog and sun.

We made it to the top, foraged for blueberries, bumped into a friendly couple we had met previously on the trail. They gave us the last of their water -how generous. We thinking a two hour hike on a foggy day, no need for water bottles. Silly us. Sun came out, hiking vertical.

Insert photo of me guzzling two liters of liquids at local convenience store.

I also saw quite a few plants that were quite interesting to me. One had dicentra eximia type leaves and a pink oxalis-type flower. Have to find out what that was.

Insert photo of plant I thought was great that you might too.

We left Mt. Desert Isle at 5pm, hours after we had planned. On the way we listened to a radio station calling itself Frank FM. We arrived in Providence at midnight. Our friend, graciously accepting us so much later than expected, offered us watermelon -just the right thing. She said she had never seen my camera.

Insert picture of me miming blogging without images.

On our return to NYC, we decided to hit the beach farm to see how things were going and for the swim because we really weren't ready to return home. When we arrived at the farm, things generally looked good, although I noticed some wilting plants and that the flood ditches were powder-dry. Despite my box, someone had turned off the water again. What can I say? You don't want to hear it.

Insert photo of wooden box with writing on it.

All that I could do at that moment was to write on the box with a delible pen that the valve should remain open, that the irrigation is controlled by the timer, that the timer is the controlling valve, when it is open and for how long, and please, please, do not close this valve -your water pressure will not be affected! Afterward, we sprayed the garden with the hose to wet down the soil and it caused the writing to bleed like some gothic mascaraed overture -now with a sense of drama that my architectural drafting hand attempted to dismount. Hello hasp and lock.

When we arrived home we were happy to find a dead mouse on the floor. Yes, I said that right. The night before we left, our cat had been scouting a mouse. Now, we've always had mice in the ceiling, but never before have we found evidence of any mice in the apartment -giving our one mousing cat credit for that. For some reason (I'm going with upstairs bachelor neighbor's new flooring and new live-in girlfriend) the mice have decided to migrate into our territory. I had been finding our mouser staring at the kitchen counter for several nights. On this night, the night before we left town, I finally saw a mouse. Well, good mouser that she is (she was trained on Maine mice), she caught and carried it happily to the living room where she decided it was best to let it free so that she could have some fun with it. Well, in the ensuing WTF, the mouse made it inside the couch. We tried and tried to get it out. The next morning we headed out the door leaving that trouble behind, hoping that in our absence our animals will find a resolution.

Insert dead mouse/proud kitty photo here.

I was unhappy to find that some folks thought it was okay to pull flowers from our garden while we were gone. When they pulled the zinnias from the side yard, they simply yanked the whole plant out. What we found was a dried up zilch hanging from the fence. In the front yard garden someone has broken and removed the blooming lily stem so that they could bring it home to enjoy all the remaining lilies.

Insert broken lily stem picture here.

Well, now that I am sans camera, I wonder in what ways my blogging will suffer. It is the images that drive the structure of my posts. I have been looking into cameras to replace my aged Canon A80 (purchased 2004) for two years now, never finding the camera that does everything that I want it to. All the while my Canon had been holding up, doing its duty, suffering only through the pesky E18 error (dirt in lens -can't extend lens). A week ago, I left it on the roof of the van and drove to the studio -it was still right where I put it when I got out in Sunset Park! I guess I've been unconsciously trying to lose it.

Well, now it's time to start touching cameras. Hello B&H. I cannot buy, however, I am totally broke -not even the can't touch my savings broke -no savings. We poured everything we have into the Previa minivan and new studios. Hmm. I need to find a way to make some extra cash.

I thought maybe the cat could do photo shoots and TV commercials. We all think this, right?

Lousy Attitude

These are the early brandywines. There's a third, about ripe, to the right of the little green one.

I think these may be all I get from this plant. It hasn't produced a new tomato since that little green one, I think due, in part, to the extreme heat last month and the fungus attacking it from the ground up. I may go ahead and pull it, excited by the chance to plant more perennials in its place.

In fact, its been a lousy year for the vegetable garden in pots. These purple podded-beans were a complete failure -I think this is maybe one of five beans we've gotten from this container. Called Bush Bean -Purple Queen, Phaseolus vulgaris, described on the Botanical Interests (TM) packet as an heirloom with beautiful deep purple pods, a compact plant that is a good container vegetable to be harvested in 55 days. We planted these about May 20th or so. They continued to grow to at least double the height of the blue lake beans, falling over, producing little flowers that never seemed to form pods. What they did produce were yellow leaves -ugly and unproductive. The common Blue Lake bush beans have done so well over the last few years in the pots that I must've gotten complacent. I am willing to figure it a failure on my part -something missed, uncared for. Inoculant? Diseased soil?

This is what they looked like before I pulled them out a minute later. I cleaned out the container and planted new bush bean seeds I got from J&L (a steal so late in the season). We'll see how that goes. I love fresh green beans, and in these little containers, 24 x 10 x 10 inches, I have been able to reap two crops of green beans (Blue Lake Bush) from the same plants over the last few summers.

This is my total harvest this year. The green ones are from the three blue lake plants that sprouted -my seeds were passed their prime and didn't fare as well as past years either. Wah wah waaahh.

This volunteer tomato seems all the more healthy for being in the ground. Maybe it's that I am tired of container vegetables altogether. I wasn't going to plant any vegetables this year, yet I did. Now that I have the beach farm, I think that's it -except for the herbs which I always want to have close to the kitchen.

Side Garden Revisited

With all the attention on the farm on the beach, it's easy to forget the garden at home. I haven't been attending to it all that much, now that the worst of the heat wave has passed.

The tomatoes have gotten quite large, and are producing somewhat. I pulled off many of the wilted leaves from the disease that has been affecting them. This makes them look much more attractive, but has done little to stop the upward progress of the yellowing, then browning, of the leaves.

The cosmos are in full flower now, yet leave me wishing they put out a little less greenery. The zinnias are also doing better and are considerably tolerant of the high heat. I grew zinnias in southern New Mexico, and they did quite well at 105 degrees F.

Cosmos.

I trimmed back the borage so that it could do its best to provide a second bloom. It's nothing like the first bloom. I think I know why it is said that borage makes for better tomatoes and beans -it brings in a lot of pollinators. We have much less bees now that the borage is producing so few flowers. I am thinking of scattering seeds at the farm on the beach. If these here don't get producing, I will pull them out in favor of something else.

It's worth noting that our beans have done terrible this year. Producing N-O-T-H-I-N-G. The purple podded beans we planted have not produced one pod! My old blue lake bush seeds were not viable anymore, sprouting only a few plants -and those have only given a few beans. I've noticed less availability in the markets -is this just me? Last year my one container of blue lake bush provided at least 4 lbs of beans over the summer.

The Cosmos

The last of these lilies.

Echinacea taking off where all else had died -the dead zone.

Right behind those, the cosmos (why 'cosmos'?) Cosmos bipinnatus begin to flower. Today I've pulled three of these and moved them to fill in some areas in the front yard garden. They transplant surprisingly well, given their large size and the heat. I give them a shovel-full of our home-made compost and a gallon of water. Planting in the evening is best, but today's went in this morning.

The beans are growing vigorously.

And our first brandywine flower turns to fruit. There is order in the universe.

Been All They Can Be

The whole sorry mess. I am thankful for today's rains. But the sogginess makes blighted plants look miserable. At times like this, one must be decisive!

Therefore the 'Black Russian' on the left has been turned in on itself to be removed sometime this week. It was producing no more fruit this season but made great strides up to this point. The 'Milano Plum' on the right was the first to blight and is looking pretty lousy.

But it keeps on producing new green growth free of blight. Then, sets of plum tomatoes and so it stays.

Somewhere in there are two 'Bella Rosa' plants that are still producing despite being ill.


These two are likely to mature before frost.


But the beans have been all they can be.

In their stead, a broccoli 'Calabrese' from last spring. How's this for broccoli growing: plant seedling in a gallon pot in spring, summer over in a semi-shady location, water little, pot-up in autumn and fertilize. See what happens. I'll let you know.

What really matters now? The Asters!

Daily Pickings

Bush beans and 'Sungold' cherry tomatoes.

Unfortunate blossom end rot on one of the 'Orange Pixie' tomatoes.

Jumping Beans

Around June 25th the green beans looked like this.

By July 4th they were beginning to leaf out. Bugs, slugs, or birds had their way with the cotyledons, so that some didn't make it. I planted new seeds to fill in. Now they are ready to flower. They grew fast, and are a bit leggy, fallen over. Last year they were more stout-legged, upright. I wonder if it has to do with the late planting? Either way, I'll get green beans, which to me is the essence of green food flavor. What I would like to imagine a bough of leaves tastes like to a giraffe.

Green Monster

My five tomatoes have grown into one large mass, predominately German Stripe and San Marzano. These two are still producing. I get about two or three tomatoes a week-enough for me. But the sun is so low now that it is behind trees for most of the vegetable gardens time slot. But they keep producing flowers and new growth. The San Marzano must be about 12 feet long now.

San Marzano

Still getting beans too. These are Pole Bean "Kentucky Wonder." Good flavor and moist at maturity if a little stringy. Can be eaten as beans too, fresh or dried for later.