At Henry Street Farms, site of the earliest transplantations into their final containers, we are harvesting Sun Gold tomatoes, serrano peppers, lettuce, eggplants and (soon) cucumbers.
In the Tomato Growth plot, you can see the younger generation of Sun Golds, that were started a month later than the elder Sun Golds. Their data starts in June. In July they are but half the height of the most mature tomatoes. From the older tomatoes' data, I predict that the newer generation of Sun Gold tomatoes will bear mature fruit by early August.
As last week, the meaning of the point color is as follows: black points represent plants that have not yet flowered; blue for flowering; green for immature fruit, and red for mature fruit.
I have Hubbard squash plants available. They will be available for free from the front steps of 116 Henry Street starting sometime tomorrow. They are an eaten-in-winter squash, forming a tough outer shell and keeping in the cellar quite well. There should be a couple summer squash plants out there in Cambridge; we kept three here, and one has immature fruit on it.
Journal entries:
My plant has grown a ton since last time I checked (Sunny is a Sun Gold tomato). That is exciting! We recommend checking, watering and pruning every day.
It’s grown (Flame, a Hot Rod pepper). 18 cm in one week, from 43 to 61. Thank you for entering data over time, that's very interesting. I wonder what happened that it grew so much. Did you transplant it?
We staked Fuzzy because the rain this week made her droop over. No flowers yet. (Fuzzy is a Sun Gold tomato). Staking is a great way to keep the plant healthy. Nice work. As Fuzzy grows, remove the lower leaves to keep air flow going and to avoid disease.
We staked Vaughn and he has a flower! (Vaughn is a Sun Gold tomato). Now you know that flowers come before the tomato fruit.
The plant had one blossom, which has fallen out. It is getting taller (Baron Pepper). Can you see the small green pepper where the blossom was? If not, I wonder if the flowers need to be fertilized.
Flowers wilting, one tiny pepper found on the soil. (Spice, an Ace Bell Pepper). Sometimes if the plant is knocked, an immature fruit may fall off. Keep it well taken care of, and fertilized every couple weeks for peppers or every week for tomatoes. Nice job on the observation! Thank you!
There are 7 peppers in total, and 2 are getting really big! (Hotwheel, a Hot Rod pepper). This is great news! You have taken care of, and reported on, your plant for many weeks. Congratulations! I think the peppers will be best when they turn red. I wonder how long until they turn red.
Tiny baby tomatoes! (Tom Plant, a Sun Gold). They will be ready to eat within two weeks if they see enough sun and get water every day.
The photos this week are awesome.
In the first photo, you see Spice, the Ace Bell pepper. The flowers are wilting, and small green fruit are forming from each flower.
The second photo shows a tomato plant in a garden with flowers. There are day lilies and roses. Beautiful.
The third photo is of two serrano peppers.
The fourth photo is very useful to teach you about weeds. Can you tell in the photo which plants are the weeds? In this picture, there are three different types of weed, and all are common in Cambridge. The intended plant is the pepper plant. It is nicely staked to a bamboo pole. The weed on the left has serrated leaf edges. It is about to flower. You can pull it out with steady pulling. The weed on the right has long smooth-edged, tapered leaves. It is tougher to pull out, but grasp it low near the dirt and pull. In the back left, peeping over the first weed, is sorrel. Some people eat sorrel as salad. I'd like to know the names of the first two weeds.