full swing ahead

At the plot, this week my carrots have started to come on!  I’ve also harvested more zucchini, cabbage, tomatillos, okra, beets, kohlrabi, lemon cucumber, basil and onions.  My eggplant, peppers, crookneck squash are coming along but not quite there.  And then there’s the tomatoes, oh poor tomatoes.  I’ve captured a horn worm chomping on tomato leaves.  And then, there are tomatoes with blossom end rot.  I suspect that it was watering – drought followed by heavy rain.  I removed the fruit with rot and time will tell if they recover, I’m hopeful! I have tasted a few black cherry tomatoes and they’ve been delish.

fresh picked carrots

farm tour

I went on a farm tour last week at Seeds of Hope Farm.  Located on the St. Francis campus in Tiffin, OH, this small-diversified farm produces vegetables, herbs, flowers, poultry and eggs.  They work very hard to use sustainable farming methods.  On the tour we explored the greenhouses, pasture, compost pile, raised beds, tool barn and CSA pickup.  They also shared and demonstrated some of their most useful tools such as their planter and picker tools, various hoes, and raised bed materials.  After the informative tour they provided a delicious lunch sourced from the farm including pulled chicken, quiche, salad greens, zucchini crisp and carrot cake.  This tour was part of the 2010 Ohio Sustainable Farm Tour and Workshop Series sponsored by Innovative Farmers of Ohio (IFO), Ohio Ecological Food and Farm Association (OEFFA), and The Ohio State University Sustainable Agriculture Team. You can find a complete listing at OEFFA website.

seeds of hope farm

you say courgette, I say zucchini

I picked my first two zucchini yesterday!  Once they start producing they grow fast.  At our community garden some zucchini plants have been producing for at least a couple of weeks now.  I saw one of mine a couple of days ago and decided to wait and it just doubled in size.  They are also good at hiding.  I’ve seen them trellised low and grown through wide cages which might help make the fruit a little more visible.  With my first zucs I made muffins and a loaf of bread.  There are tons of recipes out there… and you can chop, slice, grate, or stuff ’em to grill, saute, bake, roast, or fry ’em.  What delicious recipes have you made?

zucchini/courgette

radish bouquet

I was cleaning some stuff up at my plot last week.  My planting of radishes around May 16th didn’t give me too many usable radish.  It was really too late to put those in the ground.  The April 24th planting worked out well and probably the latest I would try them again is May 1st.  Radish can be left in the ground and will self seed.  Or you can save the seeds by letting those little pods dry out.  I left that late planting in the ground until they started to flower and picked a few for a little flower and pod radish bouquet.

radish flowers and pods