I Will Grow Eggplants: August 2023

The last few days have been pleasant and mild. Low-to-mid 20s with cool mornings and a bit of drizzle. The days are getting shorter; it's no longer bright and sunny outside at 5:00AM.

The green beans have been producing well and we have blanched and frozen several batches already. My favourites this year have been Provider and Roma II.

Mongolian Dwarf, Principe Borghese, Black Sea Man, EM-Champion, Sylvan Gaume, and even the Franchi Red Pear tomatoes are starting to ripen. I am tempted to pull up Moonglow, Clear Pink Early, and Rose de Berne, as almost every single tomato on these plants has been ruined by blossom end rot. I'm glad I only planted 1 each of Moonglow and Clear Pink Early (though 3 of Rose de Berne, unfortunately).

The Burpee’s Butterbush squash plants are just now starting to put out flowers. No squash has set yet. I hand-pollinated the first one today.

With the exception of Baba Franchuk's, all the garlic has been harvested and hung to cure. The garlic was harvested between July 31st and August 11th. Baba Franchuk’s was harvested August 11th and will be hung up in next few days. I let a few of the plants develop umbels and was surprised to see how large the bulbils are for Kiev and Baba Franchuk's!

Baba Franchuk's garlic

The sunflowers are finally blooming. They certainly add some colour and cheer to the garden!

This morning, I made jelly from the crabapple juice we froze last August. It didn’t turn out clear and is full of little bubbles. It will likely taste fine, it is just disappointing when it lacks the pretty "stained glass" appearance of a successfully canned batch of jelly. I hesitate to give jellies and jams as gifts when they turns out less than perfect. I plan to can peach butter in the next week, and hope that batch is a success.

The fenceline raised beds, looking up the driveway...

...and down the driveway.

The Galeux D'Eysines (a French heirloom pumpkin) plants are thriving. My standard has always been that if we get one or two good-sized pumpkins per plant (typically, 6-8 per season), then I've been happy.

There are many vines, making it difficult to tell which ones belong to which plants, but there are 13 set pumpkins so far. Past experience has shown that sometimes, ones that have set will stop growing and shrivel up. Even if a few do that, it looks like this might be a stellar year for Galeux D’Eysines. I topped most of the vines in the last two days so more energy will be directed to the developing pumpkins.

South garden (mostly potatoes this year).

North garden, sans garlic. AmaRosa potatoes, Fordhook zucchini, a sunflower (Sunspot?), calendula, marigolds, and green beans.

One of the dahlias and the China Aster have the same baby pink-and-white colours.

My one surviving cabbage!

Two robust volunteers have grown in the front compost bin this summer. Flowers have developed on the Galeux D'Eysines plant (we composted an old pumpkin that was past its prime in the Spring). It will be fun if we actually get a pumpkin from this volunteer!

The second volunteer is a bush bean plant. I don't know which variety it is. If it grows to maturity, we might be able to figure it out.

The Dragon’s Egg cukes are producing well.

Dahlias (Unwin's Mix)

Herbs and greens

On the south side of the house: tomatoes (Hungarian Heart, Reinhard's Chocolate Heart, and Sylvan Guame), cucumbers, dry bush beans in window box planters, marigolds, and a smidgen each of dill and basil.