Greenies battle it out for who will go to the weigh-off!

Greenie-'JABBA the HUT'

JABBA THE HUT is leading the greenies at 329 lbs while Kryptonite is close behind at 318 lbs!  JABBA is called a ‘bird bath’ because it’s belly button is sitting on top of the squash instead of on the side which is more common. We will go to the OCt 15th weigh-off in Colorado Springs to let the squashes gain as much as possible. I hope there will be no freeze or snow to kill the plants before then-it will be close. I read that they can continue to grow about 1 week after a hard frost and then you just try to keep the pumpkins from losing weight before the weigh-off. It looks like it will be 33°F on Saturday. I’ll have to cover MAX and the Greenie plants with some protective row cover material.

News on my other giants:

I don’t know how heavy the biggest marrow (zucchini) is yet. I will cut all 4 big ones before we go up and take the heaviest. I do know they are all over 43.5 lbs which was the smallest one I took to the State Fair.

The long gourd is currently 79 inches long  and I have a ‘baby’ one growing that is 50 inches long and gaining fast as well!

I’m not sure how big the Giant Pear Gourd is but I think it is close in size to the one I took to the fair which weighed in at 102 lbs.

MAD MAX reaches 439 lbs!

'MAD MAX' reaches 439 lbs

Well my giant pumpkin, MAX or MAD MAX as my neighbor calls him has now (according to the tape measure) reached 439 lbs! He is squeaking out the lbs but still gaining nonetheless. If this is true he will be the new NM State Record set last year at 421 lbs by Kong. I’m holding out for the Oct 15th GPC Weigh-Off. It’s suppose to get cold later this week-down to 36°F at night but as long as it doesn’t reach 32°F Max will be ok. I always cover MAX every night with blankets but will cover the whole plant as well starting on Thursday when the cold snap hits, just to be sure and give the leaves a few extra degrees of protection. I’ve never gone so late to a pumpkin contest because here at an altitude of 7000 feet high you really are playing Russian roulette with the weather. We always get a freeze in Otober, I’m just hoping it waits till after the contest…

Giant Pumpkin, ‘MAX’ hits 421lbs-same weight as last year’s Kong!

My main pumpkin, MAX reached 421 lbs yesterday! I still have a few warm days of September before the big GPC (Giant Pumpkin Commonwealth) weigh-off on October 15th in Colorado Springs, CO. Hopefully it will keep packing on the pounds although it has slowed to a crawl as it gets colder at night. I brought out a blanket to help keep it warm at night. Sounds crazy but if you think about it, the pumpkin is a really large mass and if you let it get cold, it takes a long time in the day to warm up before it starts growing again-sorta like our glass blowing furnace! It looks like it will beat my last year’s NM State record, Kong if the tape measurements are true. They say orange pumpkins weigh lighter than salmon ones with the same measurements so I still want more weight to ensure a new record. Just hoping this glorious weather holds up and we have no freezes till after the weigh-off. GROW NAGUA, GROW!!

NM State Fair Results for my Giant Veggies!

It is a good year for me at the State Fair for my giant veggies! I got 5 blue ribbons and first places for all my entries-giant zucchini, giant pear gourd, giant long gourd, giant tomato and giant greenie) and 2 I entered for Elodie ( a second giant zucchini and a tomato) took second places and got red ribbons. We still have bigger veggies waiting for the national contest in Colorado in October…

Sunflowers and Flowers In The Vegetable Garden

Titan sunflower at dawn

The sunflowers are in full swing right now in the garden. In the entry way are ‘Titan’ sunflowers. I call them the guardian angels of the garden. They can get huge (up to 24 inches) although mine did not this year as they were planted late (like middle of June). Still beautiful.

Hopi sunflowers

Inside the entry are some other sunflowers-Hopi sunflowers, and Chianti sunflowers. We also have wild sunflowers that grow here in NM, they just haven’t found my garden yet.

Tip Top nasturtiums

I love the green and white dappled foliage of these Tip Top nasturtiums against the other greens in the garden.

Borage is a bee plant

Borage is a companion plant to strawberries and the bees love them too. I’ve never seen the strawberry plant so lush and the bees are crazy for them!

Scarlet Runner Bean

Scarlet Runner beans are a vining pole bean and produce a beautiful orange flower. Here a bumblebee is visiting some flowers.

Entrance to the garden

Scarlet Runner beans compete with the Rattlesnake beans for the arbor.

Zinnias

The zinnias look great mixed in with ornamental corn, tip top nasturtiums and cosmos.

Cosmos

The cosmos next to the silver leafed squash are in full bloom now.

All the flowers have added to create a beautiful entrance and attract beneficial insects as a bonus. I even saw some hummingbirds this year in the garden which I haven’t seen before. If you didn’t plant flowers in your veggie garden this year, you should perhaps consider them for next year. They add so much beauty and I love hearing the bees in the garden doing their thing.

New Mexico State Fair entries

Today I dropped off my entries for the giant vegetable categories at the New Mexico State Fairgrounds which opens this weekend.  I didn’t submit a giant pumpkin this year as I only have 2 going. MAX and BABY HUEY (who I’ve been watching put on 9 lbs a day now for a while). Lava went down to Albuquerque with me to help unload. Here are the candidates I did submit:

This tomato is from a Big Zac variety and is 19.25 inches in circumference and 2 lbs, 14.4 oz in weight. It is still turning red but has completed it’s growth. I didn’t see anything bigger down at the fair. We will see..

This giant ‘greenie’ squash is ‘The Hulk’ and estimated weight is 157 lbs and has put on 7 lbs a day in the last 5 days. Here it is in the back of the Prius. It barely fit in! I still have 2 bigger greenies growing in the garden for the big weigh-off.

Here is the giant Long Gourd, ‘Digi’, which is measured by length-it is 59.5 inches long-basically the length of the back of the Prius with the seats down. It had stopped growing. I still have some longer ones still on the vine that I’m saving for the big contest. In the foreground is the whitish pear gourd.

Here is the third biggest giant marrow (zucchini), ‘Little Boy’, which is 47 inches long and 27 inches wide!  It ended up weighing 43.5 lbs which was bigger than the one I took last year to the fair.That one was 34 lbs. I have bigger ones in the garden yet to come for the big contest.

And lastly here is the giant Pear Gourd, ‘Gourdo’, which is 31 inches wide and 41 inches in length. You can’t see it too well here but it is huge. It weighed 102 lbs on the scale at the fair! I debated whether to take it today or leave it for the big contest and decided to take it as it will be for exhibition only up at the big contest as they have no category for it. At least at the state fair I will get a ribbon…

Salmorejo-cold tomato soup from southern Spain

Here are some good ideas of what to do with our tomatoes this season.
I was at my friends, Bob and Jerry’s house for dinner the other day when Bob whipped up this amazing cold tomato soup that he served with dinner. It was made with raw tomatoes and was fantastic. He got it from a recipe from the Aug. 2011 issue of Bon Appetit Magazine and was kind enough to share it with me below. It’s so good, I could drink this stuff!
I just put a ton of tomatoes through my new food mill that Elodie got me for my birthday. I did about 40 lbs of tomatoes in 20 minutes! It removes the skins and leaves a great raw sauce. I froze some of the raw tomato sauce and will make Bob’s recipe below with some of it.
I also made a huge pot of spaghetti sauce today with the rest of that tomato sauce that is still cooking as I write. I will finish cooking it tomorrow night and can it to enjoy it later this winter. It is so nice to take out a jar of sauce from the summer tomatoes in the dead of winter!
Here is Bob’s recipe for Salmorejo, a cold tomato soup from Spain.
Salmorejo
Note: Very important to let the blender run for three solid minutes. Then get it real cold…. about 2 hours in the fridge.
Squeeze seeds and pulp from 3 lb. ripe halved tomatoes into a strainer set over a large bowl.
Press solids to release as much liquid as possible; discard solids.
Core and chop tomatoes; add to bowl.
Combine 3 toasted, chopped 4 x 4 x 1/2″ slices white bread,
1/4 cup toasted slivered almonds and
4 smashed garlic cloves in a blender.
Pulse until chopped.
Add tomatoes with liquid to blender in batches, pureeing until very smooth.
Add 1 tsp. sherry vinegar.
With blender running, gradually add 1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil.
Puree until emulsified and frothy, 3 minutes.
Season with salt and more vinegar, if desired.
Chill until cold, about 2 hours.
Ladle in to small bowls or glasses
Garnish with chopped hard-boiled egg

Try purslane weed-it’s good!

Purslane

Purslane is considered a weed here in the U.S. but this year it is the ONLY weed I ALLOW in the vegetable garden. That’s right. I allow this weed to grow freely anywhere it wants. Purslane has been eaten in Mexico and Europe for years where it is not considered a weed and the gold miners in California at the turn of the century ate it as well. Hence it is called Miner’s lettuce also.

What most people don’t know is that it tastes good too. I took a bite of it in the garden and it has a sort of lemony taste and was very juicy as it is a succulent. One of my friends told me their mother use to saute it with a little garlic, salt and red chili pepper flakes and eat it with her pinto beans. Now that sounds tasty enough! I also heard people mix it in their salads which I can imagine also as I liked the taste of it raw. And best of all, it has the highest Omega-3 amino acids of any vegetable, in fact higher than salmon! What a great way to get our Omega -3’s! So pull this weed out and eat it. But if you grow it, pull it out before it reseeds itself or grow it in an area you don’t care about.

Giant Pumpkin ‘MAX’ hits 350 lbs on Sept 1

MAX hits 350 on Sept 1, 2011

MAX hits 350 lbs today! It continues to grow although it is starting to slow down a bit-no more 11 lb daily gains. I was in the patch and added a few drip emitters and dug the well out again around it and put compost in the well to help slow evaporation.If we get more rain, it might help it gain more as all the secondary vines will suck up water too.

The good news is last year’s champ, Kong was 228 lbs on this date, Sept 1, of last year. I went back and compared pictures and stats from last year’s Sept 1 to this year. They look a lot alike (of course they do their siblings!) only MAX is more orange and bigger. Now mind you Max is 53 days old and Kong was 35 days old on Sept 1 of last year. Max got pollinated earlier than Kong. I figured MAX has extra growing days. Either way I’ll take it. MAX now needs 77 lbs to beat the State record I set last year. I wonder if anyone else is shooting for the State Record this year. Hmmm…

Giant Green Squash-‘Greenies’-all over 100 lbs now..

This is my first year of growing ‘greenies’ which are basically giant green squash the shape of pumpkins. I really like this plant. It is huge, by far the taking up the most space in the pumpkin patch. The leaves come up mid thigh to me and they have basically been very easy to grow. I have three good sized greenies that are taking off right now, all well over 100 lbs so far. One will go to the NM State Fair next week and the other two will duke it out to see who will be the heaviest for the Great Pumpkin Commonwealth weigh-off in Colorado. They all have names now. Meet the ‘greenies’!

Here is ‘Jabba the Hut’ named because it’s belly button is tilted more on top instead of on the side like the others and it is very lumpy. I like it’s shape! It is growing the fastest and is the largest at 118 lbs last Sunday.

Here is ‘Kyrptonite’. It has that classic perfect pumpkin shape with it’s belly button in the normal position on the side. It was 111lbs last Sunday.

Last is ‘The Hulk’, who is also growing in a weird shape as seen in the second picture below. It was 100 lbs last Sunday. I probably will take it to the NM State Fair next week.

Giant Marrow (zucchini) continues to grow in garden..

Giant marrow continues to grow in garden

I have a giant marrow seed that I got from a grower in the Netherlands that I’m growing this year. They call zucchini squash, courgettes or marrows in Europe. Both zucchini and marrows are in the same family- Curcurbita Pepo. My giant marrow (zucchini) is getting bigger and more gnarly. It is now kept wrapped up tightly with row cover to protect it from the pesky squirrel. I’m not sure how much it weighs as I don’t know of any measurement method like we have for giant pumpkins so it is always a surprise at the State Fair or at the Giant Pumpkin Commonwealth weigh-off  in Colorado but it sure looks BIG with that beer can on it for perspective. The US record for this type of giant vegetable is around 90 lbs! Last year, my biggest marrow weighed 43 lbs and set a NM State Record. This one is still growing so we will see!

Santa Fe Farmers Market/The Tomato Lady

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Saturday went well for my first time at the Santa Fe Farmers Market for this year. It is actually my third year returning as The Tomato Lady. I had many varieties of tomatoes, much more than I anticipated and sold most of them. I had a few left over which I made into tomato sauce and tomato tapenade today.

Squirrel ate second largest pumpkin :(

Squirrel ate hole through pumpkin

Ah Compost! Just when I  thought the squirrels left for the neighbors property, and I didn’t put out the repellant due to all the rain, a squirrel ate a hole ALL the way through my second biggest pumpkin which was just taking off in growth.  It’s done. I didn’t cover it as well either, not like MAX which gets triple coverage to keep them from getting to it. So now I only have MAX and one other little pumpkin with time running out. So I am very disappointed.

Closeup of squirrel damage

I still have the giant pear gourd, giant zucchini and giant greenie squashes and giant long gourds doing well and I have now covered them really well since this incident. They all look like mummies wrapped up super tight. It is soo hard to grow these giants and takes up so much time which is fine but then to have it destroyed is hard. I need my ranch dog, Sage, an Australian shepard back on the ranch. She died 2 summers ago of old age and kept everything in order-the coyotes, the rodents, and the neighbor dogs. Ever since she died the the rodents (pack rats, mice and squirrels are making a run on taking over the gardens. And the repellants are expensive. I’m almost ready to call a critter control guy…

‘The Tomato Lady’ returns to Santa Fe Farmers Market this Saturday, Aug 20

Here are some of the tomatoes I’ll be bringing to the Santa Fe Farmers Market

FINALLY, I will arrive at the Farmers market this Saturday, Aug 20 in the SAME LOCATION INSIDE THE BUILDING not outside. (COME INSIDE the BUILDING BY THE 2ND ENTRY WHEN YOU WALK DOWN MAIN OUTSIDE AISLE). I won’t have as many tomatoes YET as I would like so if you want some incredible, organically grown, heirloom tomatoes, you better come EARLY as I anticipate SELLOUT by 9:30am even though the market stays open till 12:30. Of course not all of them ripen at the same time so you will have a variety of tomatoes to pick from each week. Over 25 heirloom tomato varieties on 70 plants this year! This is the beginning-it will only get better as each week more and more tomatoes will ripen. I will also have other heirloom veggies there – Shishito peppers, a few Pepperoncini peppers, incredibly sweet, never bitter Fairy eggplants, fantastic nutty flavored Rattlesnake beans, wonderful thin French filet beans, Emerite, but mostly tomatoes, tomatoes, tomatoes! Hope to see your happy faces soon!

Deterring squirrels from eating your garden..

Rock squirrel-photo courtesy of Tadam at pl.wikipedia

July 29th-So the battle is on against the squirrels. One of my friends tried the hot pepper spray to no avail. I guess the Rocky squirrels that live here in New Mexico are use to hot peppers and like their food hot! I hear they prefer green over red chili!

Right now I’m trying 2 products from Agua Fria Nursery. The first one I tried is called Shake Away, made of fox urine granules and is for small critters-rabbits,groundhogs chipmunk, and squirrels. It is very stinky. You put  down a tablespoon every three feet like a dog marking it’s territory around the garden fence perimeter. Apply it twice a week the first week, then 0nce a week and then once every 2 weeks. It seems to be working because I haven’t seen more damage on the tips of the pumpkins that I left uncovered the past few days.  I’m not sure if I saw some damage on some big leaves that were munched or if that was from before this stuff was down. Taking notes now..

My next line of defense is Plantskydd repellant for rabbits, voles,chipmunks, other rodents and deer. This is granules of dried bovine blood-yuk. I put some of that down too. It doesn’t say whether we need to reapply any of this stuff  if it rains, but I take no chances and put both of them around some more after it rains (LOL). I got some of those party whirley birds as I called them when I was a kid that are made of shiny mylar and spin in the wind. I am also covering completely with row cover any pumpkins or giant marrows so the pesky rascals can’t eat them..

UPDATE-Here’s the update 3 weeks later-August 16th. It really seems to work. The squirrels are not trying to eat the pumpkin patch anymore. Just keep up on sprinkling it around the perimeter. In fact I think the squirrels left the property because I haven’t seen them in awhile. Perhaps they moved to my neighbors where they think the foxes don’t live!