First Harvests

It certainly has been an interesting spring. The recent monsoons really put a hold on planting but we were rewarded with previous hard work by this week's arrival of the strawberry crop. The first pull was actually last week along the outer south-west edge of the bed. I guess these are the first to receive the most direct sun. Yesterday we were able to collect several quarts throughout the bed and I expect the next two weeks to be peak production times. The berries are of excellent size and quality. However they aren't quite as sweet as last year and I suspect this is due to all of the rain we've had.



The tomatoes went in two weeks ago and I had to plant them in the rain (and in the mud) because they were out-growing their pots and I was getting tired of having to water them and shuttle them between the lights and the few periods of direct sun we received between storms. So far they are doing well and I hope to begin the basket-weave support system on the main line in the next few days. I got this idea off of the Johnny's site, and it looks like a convenient method of support especially for the heirloom varieties that don't tend to have the vine strength of the hybrids. I'll be cutting down my older concrete wire cages for the Romas and the grape tomatoes. Unlike years past where early intentions were noble but not followed, I plan to aggressively prune our vines this year.



Also this year we decided to go almost completely heirloom except for one hybrid that will be our emergency backup just in case we have a major crop failure with the heirlooms. This year's hybrid is Johnny's Defiant PhR. This mid-size slicer is advertized as being bred for both disease resistance as well as taste. Since it is a PhR strain, it will be interesting to see how it does with late season blight since that is a common occurrence in all local gardens. The basket-weave support system along with aggressive pruning should also help with the blight situation.

This year's heirlooms are our old stand-by Pruden's Purple along with Valencia, and Striped German. For drying and juice, we are sticking with our old favorite Roma VFN. And for the grapes we are trying two new varieties this year; Sugary, the 2005 AAS winner, and Tinkerbell which is reported to be a mini plum.



And this will be the first year of production for the much anticipated raspberry bed. Last spring we planted five reds and five blacks alternating along a single straight row and as expected this "weed" bramble is definitely doing it's thing. If the number of flower clusters is any indication of yield, we are in big trouble. Maybe this year it will finally be time to try some country fruit wines using some of the excess strawberries and raspberries.