06.04.20 Chauvin Produce Company 2020 – May Update

I truly had forgotten how much time and effort is needed to grow vegetables. And just when some are starting to ripen, the temperatures soar to the 90s which makes being out there really difficult.

The only fruit that has required anything has been our blueberries. Since those are necessary for my brain health plus I love them, picking them is a joy. Except for the pain in my back that picking them cause. Oh well!

Starting with the main garden. Each of the vegetables growing in the main garden is labeled below and above plants. Click on that picture and any of them to enlarge it.

Roy’s tomatoes on the right in the photo above are ripening and are delicious! However, only half of the tomatoes that ripen are good, without bad spots. The other half either have a worm in them which he has sprayed for but a few got through. The other problem is the blossom rot. Roy has just added some lime to the soil to help prevent that. The tomatoes below were picked in one day. We are having to pick them early in their ripening process so they avoid the bad spots. They are delicious also!

We have enjoyed a tomato and cucumber salad with our meal every day this week and love that!

My cucumbers are producing a couple of nice ones each day which are being added to the tomato and cucumber salad. These young cucumbers are nice and tender! I love seeing new baby cucumbers like in these pictures.

.The cucumbers at bottom of the vines have an odd shape since they hit the ground in their growth and curve around upward. Those growing further up on the vine have a perfect cucumber shape.  Either shape is delicious!

Green beans are closest to the bottom of the picture and cucumbers at the other end.

Green bean bushes on the left and cucumber vines on the right.

I haven’t grown green beans before. It was quite a surprise to me how quickly they produced and how many! The beans growing in the main garden produce the most. They produce enough every day to have a meal of them. I’ve fixed them with potatoes and bacon and also with bacon wrapped around the beans. The rest have been blanched and frozen for future meals.

The turnips are another surprise for me. They grow quickly and are delicious. I had too many planted together in a few spaces which crowded the size of the bottom. We are only growing them for the bottoms which is a good thing because the green part had a lot of bug holes thought I never could find a bug on them.  I just picked another batch of turnips today to cook.

 I planted more turnip seeds in two other locations and they are slowly starting to sprout but just barely. Our first turnip side dish was served in butter salt and pepper. It was delicious. I buy turnip bottoms from the grocery sometimes and these tasted so much better! Several of my Facebook friends shared their turnip cooking recipes so I think I’m set for more turnip growth.

Okra plants are strong and growing well. I’ve picked four so far. I took these photos late last week. When I went out there this morning to pick they were already much bigger.

The bell pepper plants have flowers and some have tiny tiny bell peppers growing on them. The plants in the upper right corner of the photo above are some of the bell pepper bushes.

Eggplants are in varying sizes and the biggest two have purple flowers which precede the tiny eggplants themselves. Nothing to harvest yet but the plant looks great!

My seven cherry tomato bushes are loaded with tomatoes and are starting to ripen a few at a time! Mine were planted a month after Roys so they are maturing later.

The garden down by the pond:

The green bean plants produce a few green beans each day though they appear to have been enjoyed by some animal from time to time.

Roy’s second set of 11 creole tomato bushes are doing extremely well. He picked the first one this week and we can see hundreds more

The “dog cage garden”

Several turnip seeds were added this week in the middle of this garden. They are already sprouting! Three of my cherry tomato plants were also added to this garden.  From the time they were taken out of their pots until now (being in the ground), they have at least quadrupled their size. They are not as big or as far along as their brothers and sisters in the main garden but where they are planted is an experiment to see how that area does for tomatoes.

The potatoes have several bushes growing which is really all you see until it’s time to dig up the potatoes that are underground!

The green bean plants down there are doing about the same as the ones in the garden down by the pond. They are producing, just not as much as the main garden.

Carrot seeds were planted early this month and the green leaves that come out of the ground are doing well. There are two rows of them. In the photo below the watermelons are at the top and the two rows of carrots are at the bottom.

The red meat watermelon vines are growing really well and have flowers on them which will eventually become watermelons. The yellow meat watermelon vines are not doing as well but they are growing and look healthy. Watermelons are something we didn’t do outstanding with last year so this new place to grow them is so far promising. In the photo below the watermelon, vines are on the right and the carrots are on the left.

Fruit trees

Pecan tree is growing well but no pecans yet, too young.

The two fig trees are loaded with green figs which will probably give us around a hundred figs.

The plum tree is pretty but not bearing fruit yet, too young.

Like I said at first, the blueberries are just going to town and I am enjoying them every day.  A lot of them were put in the freezer and I get to put them in my oatmeal or yogurt every day fresh from the garden! We are over half way into them all ripening. A few more days and they will all be gone.

It has been fascinating to see a bunch of little green one a branch one day and the next one of them has exploded into this beautiful deep blue plump ripe blueberry.   The in-between stages going from small green to ripe plumb blue is a bluish pink stage.The bluish pink stage will be the ripe ones the next day. Of the eight bushes, one does not have any berries on it and I am going to figure out why before next year’s crop!

I love enjoying fresh blueberries right off the vine in my breakfast yogurt or oatmeal!

https://rosalynandroy.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/20200525_105015.jpg Roy’s grape vines are growing. No grapes on those vines yet!

I think that’s about it for the month of May. Some observations want to note.

Each row is not full of that row’s vegetable.

The turnip seeds I planted at this end of that row came up very well and quickly. The ones I planted at the other end of the row aren’t hardly doing anything. Not sure why!

Even though this years rows are further apart than last yer it is still difficult to get down the aisles as the plants get bigger.

Most important is that we purchased most all of our seeds from the Seed Plant online company. Thiswas a change from previous years.