Non-Explosive Cabbage and Bacon

Some of my cabbage survived the hydrostatic pressure and is quite tasty.

Had my Mom on my mind this morning so I made some fried bacon and cabbage.

Yummy!!!!

When Cabbages Explode...

I have read that cabbages and other vegetables can actually explode if they get too much water all at once. I have seen tomatoes split, but I have never seen anything like this. the hydrostatic pressure must have been pretty intense to split that guy all way through! Try and take a nice fresh head of cabbage and tear it in half with your bare hands.

Late Garden Still Going!

Its been a while since an update. Sorry for the delay, but life has been demanding, some things needed to slide a little, and this has been one of those things.

Here is a pretty typical day these days. These are actually the last of the summer potatoes, a good sized carrot or two, some peppers (marconi, cayenne, and poblano here), some tomatoes (Brandywine, Costoluto Genovese, and a little Cherokee Purple), an onion or two, and a special addition today - a little Charantais!

We harvested the first two ripe ones today and have 14 more to go. Let me tell you, we must have the exact right soil or something because these things taste AWESOME!

Here we have one of our BIG Rouge Vif de Etempes pumpkins. He have eight of them, but these two, next to each other on the same vine, have gotten a lot bigger than the others. Anybody got an idea on average size of these normally? Also, as is my plan each year, I just let them sprawl into the yard.

A number of the little cabbages that I thought would just die in the August heat came around strongly in the streak of cool weather we have had of late. The advantage of this in particular seems to be a total lack of cabbage loopers. I had loopers on me early cabbages (and I spent a lot of time picking them off by hand, yucky!), but these seem totally uneffected.

And here we have HOT HOT HOT Thai peppers grown from seed from my dad. These things are tasty, but a couple of them will drop you to your knees.

Will try to make it a lot sooner to the next post!

Garden Update

Well, the garden is doing really well. A quick rundown:

Fruit - looks like about 20 bunches of grapes, some strawberries, a few apples, some ground cherries, our blackberries FINALLY bloomed so we may get some of those, and the raspberries have almost all taken. Not bad.

Veggies - All the veggies have taken, although the brocolli, cabbages, and carrots are struggling a little. Not sure whats up with the carrots, I got a really low germination level (one in ten, maybe) and I may have to plant some more to see. And something is already eatting some of my beans.

Herbs - All the herbs look good, but the thyme and tarragon are not thriving. It could be some prolonged transplant shock or a poor soil mix on my part (mixed my own potting soils this time - thanks for the inspiration Susy!). Will have to wait and see. And if I have one more person tell me that thyme is easy to grow and becomes invasive I will throttle them! This is my third year trying and its still not going well.

Anyways, here are some pics as well:

A shot down the walkway. Its about a week old, I need to update it desperately!

Cabbages. Coleslaw, steamed, sauerkraut, kim chi, soup, endless reasons to drool!

L to R - Tomatoes, radishes, and beans.

And here we have some ground cherries.