Goodbye tree

The silk lilac tree outside the yard, which never came back to life this year, was removed today.

2 more fall cucumbers harvested

Another 3 to come soon.

Neighbourhood apples finally! First yesterday, two today (unlikely to be many more)

Didn't think I'd get any, but yesterday one, and today there were two nice big ones in mostly-good shape.  Not as sweet as last year, but still highly edible!

Removed all tomato plants bec killed by late blight, except Jasper

Went ahead and pulled all of the Tofusteaks and Big Tofu Pluses, as they were mostly all crispy from the late blight.  Most of the fruits still on the plants were rott-y, so I tossed them, but did keep some including several all-green ones.  --> Edited a few days later to say that the rotting continued inside, so tossed all of the green ones; the red ones I had to peel off some blighty sections but the insides were fine.

Hummingbird!!

While refilling the bird bath this afternoon, what did I see but a hummingbird swoop in on the zinnia patch next to the fence, then immediately swoop out of the yard when they saw I was there.  So, very fleeting, but neat!

Cuke fall crop harvest began! 61 days from sow to first harvest

One of the Eureka cucumber plants that was sowed in the pot on July 22nd, whose female I pollinated on Sep 5th, I harvested today!  That makes 61 days from sowing to first harvest.

I'm seeing at least 3 more that took, but all in the west bed, should be ready within a week or so.  The pot plants aren't looking too great, but, we'll see.

130th zucchini harvested!

I thought this was late in the season, but actually, looking back to past years, the latest I harvested zucchinis was into November!  And October frequently too.

So, maybe the harvest will go on longer than I thought... Though things are massively slowed down, hardly any flowers happening and when they do, the zukes are very slow to grow.  I think part is they must have depleted the soil, given how amazingly productive they are... plus the powdery mildew doesn't help either.  

Beefsteak & Big Beef Plus tomato plants ravaged by -- late blight? But it was a great harvest (and more to come)

Wow, over the last week or so the tomato plants took a huge downturn, from being gorgeous and healthy to now about 80% shrivelled and drying up.  There are still several tomatoes of various greens and oranges, hopefully they won't be affected but even if so, it was a huge harvest overall.

Interestingly, the Jasper cherry tomato still looks mostly great, just those ongoing yellow/diseases leaves scattered throughout but certainly looking much healthier now than the other plants.

Rest of tulle removed

It was just the beets and one pair of zucchinis that still had tulle.  Removed it today, just because.

The cucumber hand-pollinated Sep 5th took and is almost ready!

I'd guess another 5 days or so, then will have my first fall crop cucumber!

Freezing raw/whole/plain tomatoes (easy peasy)

Having nearly completely run out of jars and freezer space, decided to try the one thing I NEVER do:  Freeze an actual vegetable instead of making something out of and freezing that.

Google says tomatoes can simply be frozen whole.  No nothing' needed beforehand.  So, I just removed the green stem (but didn't cut in to remove the scabby bit), gave them a quick soapy wash in the sink, put them on the counter to dry, then put them on a plate in the freezer.  Once frozen, into a bag they went, and sucked out the excess air.

Soooooo easy, and so nice to take a break from ALL. THE. COOKING. that I've been doing in recent months.

Should be easy peasy to later take them out and use them for new batches of minestrone, lentil tomato soup, bolognese, etc., sometime over the winter.

All fall broccoli a flop; pulled the one remaining flop of a plant and sowed buckwheat

Yeah, that one last plant was definitely getting nibbled at by something and was totally failing to thrive.  So, pulled it and instead sowed a bunch of buckwheat, straight from the jar, then covered lightly in soil and then with a plastic sheet.

Next year for a fall broccoli, start then in containers (with a way to also cover with floating row cover, or tulle since at that point would be small / not touching the tulle), then transplant to ground once nice and sturdy.

Removed all miner-damaged chard leaves for the second time

There were tons and tons of badly miner-damaged swiss chard leaves, so the first pass I did on July 23rd wasn't the end of it.

Will see now if those miners are finished for the year once and for all...

120th zucchini harvested!

Most of the zucchini plants keep trucking along, ever so slowly -- though the late untulled start in the central bed is doing awesome, quite productive.

Birds eating lettuce seeds from the plant

Saw sparrows (house, I think) having a buffet of lettuce seeds from the Ruby plants I let flower.  I've collected a good amount of seeds already; happy to share.

Shade container potato experiment cont'd: Results of containers #2 & 3 = 1.25 lbs from 7 seed potatoes

Emptied the last 2 containers along the fence, which were in full shade, and their plants had fully died a while ago from blight.

The black pot had 4 seed potatoes and yielded 0.5 pounds.

The big terracotta-coloured plastic pot had 3 seed potatoes and yielded 0.75 pounds.  The bottom third of the pot was soaking wet -- bad drainage and zero potatoes down there.  Might have had more yield if it had had better drainage?

So far this makes a total of 4 pounds of potatoes for the $27 of seed potatoes.  The last patch is by the a/c (where I had put the runtiest ones) -- those plants are still quite green (though blighty), so won't harvest them yet.

Another round of buckwheat sown

In the NE part where the store-bought basil and part of the carrots were.  (Amended this part of the bed today with alfalfa pellets (pre-soaked), pulled basil, and pulled carrot tops.)

The buckwheat was sown straight from the storage jar (not pre-soaked or anything).  Coveredish lightly with soil, then with clear plastic.

Taste comparison: Big Tofu Plus vs. Tofusteak

Tested as part of a tomato sandwich.

Flavour seems to be pretty much identical.  The Big Tofu Plus had a firmer texture though, which I would say made this the winner.

Female cucumber from fall sowing! Hand-pollinated. Will it take?

It's on one of the potted cucumber plants, all three of which are quite pale green in colour.  Hand-pollinated it with several males but as usual I can't see any cucumber pollen for the life of me.  Will see if it takes.

Tomato plant health update: All looking great except blighty Jasper, but even it continues to produce

^^^

Un-tulled one pair of zucchini plants

A sparrow got in somehow this morning and was trapped, so I removed the tulle to free the bird.  Won't bother re-tulling.  This pair of plants are pretty tired and don't look to be producing too much more.

Merlin in willow trees

That noise is unmistakeable, and the app confirmed it.  With the oodles of sparrows coming to the yard these days, I hope it's not a matter of time before the merlin comes and takes one from the yard...

Carrot weevil adult found

While digging around and harvesting carrots, found an carrot weevil adult, confirming my suspicions of a few weeks ago re: the cause of the damage.

Very cute and not flying.  

A rough guess is that of the carrot harvest so far, ~35% have the weevil damage.  I'll just be sure to use those carrots up separately (and obviously toss the damaged upper parts).

Wild plum tree! Found at MForest --> Update: Eat raw only!!

Very cool!  At first glance I thought crab apples, though they looked different.  They I wondered if cherry?  But then I clued in -- wild plum!  On the side trail to the garbage dump.

A bunch of ripe ones fell when shaking the tree gently.

The flesh is juicy and nice, but boy those skins are tart!

Not sure whether Prunus nigra, or Prunus Americana.

Some info and recipe ideas:

https://foragerchef.com/wild-plums/

https://curiousbynature.wordpress.com/tag/plum-recipes/

https://cookthismeal.com/recipe/1604-sandhill-plum-pie

UPDATED THE NEXT DAY:  Eat them raw only!!  By biting into them gently, sucking out the pulp, and spitting out the pit and peel.  I tried removing the peel two ways (one by boiling then dunking in ice water; the other by baking) -- both ways made the entire flesh horribly horribly bitter.  Whereas, they were very pleasant simply eating raw (minus the peel and pit).

Fall cucumber plants have been flowering -- females only so far

... They're looking pretty good.  And bees are coming around for the buckwheat and Jasper tomato flowers, so, once some female cukes start appearing hopefully they'll get good and pollinated.

Oh no!!! 3 of the 4 fall broccoli plants have been killed! (they were still skinny)

Noticed about a week ago that one of the four piracicabas that I direct-seeded a while ago had floundered, didn't think too much as 3 were still left.  Well!  Today I noticed 2 more have died!!  The stem was sliced clean through, about 1.5 inches above soil level.  Cutworm maybe!?  (As they've been always under floating row cover.)

Bummer.  One is still there... for now.  I won't bother doing anything about this, will just see if this one makes it.  But in future years, I should avoid direct seeding broccoli in favour of waiting until plants are good and sturdy before putting in the ground.