Kong has reached 396 lbs! I am trying to get it past the state record of 404 lbs by pushing it a little with fish emulsion and seaweed every day. I have to be careful not to blow it up! It will be touch and go until the end when we take it on Saturday up to Colorado Springs, CO for the weigh-off. Every pound is critical now. I won’t know if it beats the record until they officially weigh Kong as I could be wrong on my measurements (wishful thinking?) or it could weigh light (or heavy). I need at the minimum 10 lbs in 4 days and that is if the measurements are correct. The weatherman is predicting warm days in the 80’s which bodes well for Kong. Grow Kong, grow.. Stay tuned!
2010 Tomatoes winners from my garden
This year I planted 20 varieties of tomatoes and want to give you my favorites. Here are the winners!
HEIRLOOMS
costuluto genevese tomato
Costuloto Genevese-This Italian heirloom is the prettiest tomato I’ve ever seen. It has highly fluted or scalloped edges that are beautiful when sliced horizontally. It ripens to a beautiful deep red and and has that old fashioned tomato flavor. Very prolific. One of my favorites for Caprese salad.
Black Cherry-I grew them last year. Wonderfully complex, earthy sweet flavor so typical for black tomatoes.
Paul Robeson-I grew them last year and I like them even better this year. This one is a favorite of many at our Farmers Market. Complex flavors of sweet and just the right amount of acid.
Green Grape-This is my new favorite cherry tomato. Unbelievably complex sweet flavor. I like to mix them in with my other cherry tomatoes for a medley of color and flavors
black pear tomato
Black Pear-New for me this year, they have a wonderful sweet black tomato flavor. Very abundant.
Striped German-Giant Bi-Color beefstake that is a supersweet. Beautiful yellow and red marbling inside. Takes all summer to ripen but it’s worth the wait!
pantano romanesco tomato
Pantano Romanesco-Another Italian heirloom hailing from Rome. This one is very prolific and nice sized. Beautiful fluted tomato with that old fashioned tomato flavor
NM State Fair Results for giant pumpkin/marrows
I went to the 2010 New Mexico State Fair yesterday and won first place for my littlest giant pumpkin and first and second place for my marrows (zucchinis). It was fun seeing all the different veggies on display and which ones won. Next stop-Great Pumpkin Commonwealth (GPC) Weigh-Off in Colorado Springs, CO with my biggest pumpkin and marrow on October 2.
1st place-giant pumpkin 2010
1st and 2nd place-zucchini 2010
‘Kong’ grows to 360 lbs!
‘Kong’ has grown to 360 lbs. It is now my PB (personal best), still putting on weight and looking good. I wonder what it will end up at. I’m going to the Oct 2 Giant Pumpkin Commonwealth (GPC) weigh-off in Colorado Springs, CO. The New Mexico State Record is 404 and with this warm weather I have a chance to break it. A long shot but still a chance. So put a word out to the universe asking for Kong to break the state record! GROW KONG GROW!!!
Giant Marrows gone to State Fair
I had my friend Lava, enter 3 zucchinis in the New Mexico State Fair in Albuquerque last Tuesday for me while I’ve been gone in NYC. One (the smallest) was a traditional zucchini, and 2 were giant varieties called marrows. A marrow is in the zucchini family-Curcurbita Pepo. It is grown more in Europe than in the states. It is eaten when small but the giant varieties have the capacity to get big-really big-much bigger than our ordinary variety of zucchini! I weighed my two smaller marrows that I entered into the fair on my bathroom scale and one was about 25 lbs and the other was around 35 lbs. I wonder if anyone in NM is growing a giant variety of marrow. I didn’t even weigh my traditional zucchini because it was so small compared to the giant varieties. I am going down to the fair today to see if I got any ribbons..
Getting ready to measure the biggest marrow
I still left the biggest marrow in the patch to see how big it will grow before the Colorado weigh-offs. It measured almost 30″ long and 14″ wide about a week ago. I think it weighs about 45 lbs right now. Here is a pic of me getting ready to weigh it.
measuring length-almost 30" (see I wasn't lying!)
I love the marrows-one of the most exciting plants I grew this year. I’ll have to harvest some seeds, although they were probably cross-pollinated by the bees with my winter squash. I’m still going to keep some seeds..
I also entered in ‘Harpie’, one of my two giant pumpkins. Lava said it officially weighed 99 lbs at the fair. I don’t think it will place but I’m gonna try!
biggest marrow that went to the fair-35 lbs!
See the difference between a marrow and a regular zucchini?!
measuring width-almost 14"
MG Giant Veggie Garden Tour and Winter Gardening Class Information Sheets
Here are all the information sheets I had out at the Santa Fe Master Gardener’s Giant Veggie Tour and the Winter Gardening Class held at my garden for anyone that wants them. I’m also listing the link to the whole article on attracting beneficial insects that I got from http://www.grinning planet.com. Following are the pdfs for the info sheets from the tour on Attracting Beneficial Insects, the Mid Summer/Fall Plant Help info sheet, the Squash Bug Preference Chart (yes squash bugs actually have squash preferences!) and Organic Plant Insect/Critter Control Recipes. Also are the sheets from the Winter Gardening Class held today. Two plans showing how to build coldframe/hotbeds, winter gardening information sheet and Fall/Winter Vegetable Planting Guide from Ed Hume Seeds website. Just download them and print them for your files.
PDFS FROM TOUR:
Mid Summer/Fall Help For Plants
Organic Plant Insect/Critter Control Recipes
PDFS FROM WINTER GARDENING CLASS:
Fall and Winter Vegetable Planting Guide
Master Gardener’s Giant Veggie Garden Tour on Sunday Sept. 5
I’ve been out of town but wanted to get the tour post in. Here is a slide show of the of my giant veggie garden tour yesterday for the Santa Fe Master Gardeners. They saw giant sunflowers (Titans), giant pumpkins (Atlantic Giant), giant marrows, and giant tomatoes (that aren’t ripe yet so not much to see). They also saw many regular veggies and flowers. I talked about my growing techniques and answered questions. About 30 people showed up. I had a great time showing the fruits of my labor. I think they enjoyed it as well.
‘Kong’ hits 278 lbs..
‘Kong’, my only giant pumpkin left, hit 278 lbs tonight. (I’m putting ‘Harpie’ in the NM State Fair tomorrow-it was much smaller at around 100 lbs). If ‘Kong’ can put on 6 lbs a day till the weigh-off, I can beat the current New Mexico State Record. It’s been putting on 8-12 lbs daily for awhile but I know it will slow down to a crawl this month. Hopefully I still have 2 or more weeks of good weight gain before the crawl. Grow nagua, grow…
Giant pumpkin ‘Kong’ hits 228+ lbs!
Here is a mini slide show of ‘Kong’, my biggest giant pumpkin right now. There is an apple on it for perspective. Kong is 35 days old and 228 lbs as of tonight. It’s been putting on between 12-17 lbs a day. I said a day! 17 lbs is the best weight gain in a single day I have ever had with a giant pumpkin. I know others have greater gains but we have harsher conditions and shorter growing season here. Kong is starting to get longer and bumpier. I like its looks! I love going out after work and measuring them every evening. You can actually see a difference from day to day. It is mind blowing!
‘Harpie’, my other big pumpkin, is beautiful, being perfectly round and not gnarly like Kong. It is at 100 lbs and its weight gain varies from 4-10 lbs a day. I will post pictures of it later.
It has been around 47 degrees during this past week so I have to put a blanket on both of the pumpkins over their row cover so they don’t loose so much heat at night. The pros say to blanket them when the temperature gets below 60 degrees at night. That way they don’t have to wait to warm up in the morning to continue growing. The row cover is to provide shade during the day (think like a light weight covering) so their skins don’t get hard. It is easier for them to grow when their skin is soft.
This is my pumpkin mantra, “Grow Naguas, grow” (grow pumpkins, grow). I say it everynight when leaving the pumpkin patch!
Virginia Sweet Tomato
Virginia Sweet Tomato
Check out this tomato! Yesterday, my friend Janet Hiron, a fellow S.F. Master Gardener, gave me an huge tomato that she grew called ‘Virginia Sweet’. She only has maybe 8 of them on her plant (so I got 1/8th of her harvest-bless her). What a beauty and I can’t wait to eat it! It is a bicolor and should be marbled with red orange and yellow streaks inside. She said the flavor is unbelievable. This one is over 2 lbs. Thanks Janet!
Master Gardeners tour-Giant Vegetable Garden
I’ve been getting ready for my first Giant Veggie Garden Tour for the Santa Fe Master Gardeners group next Sunday from 9am-12 noon. I have 3 giant marrows, one being around 30+ lbs, 2 giant pumpkins, many giant sunflowers, and a couple of giant tomatoes (still green). I’m cleaning up, trimming and generally sprucing up the garden. By the time they come next Sunday I should be ready. Seems like there is always something to do in a garden no matter the size. Fall is definitely in the air with the nights cooling off into the high 40-50s. Daytime temperatures are in the 80s. Perfect weather to be in the garden…
Lava’s Chocolate Zucchini Bread
Wondering what to do with all those zucchini right about now? Here is a great recipe from my good friend Lava. It is unbelievably moist and very chocolatey! You can also make them into brownies instead of bread. Either way it’s a winner!
LAVA’S CHOCOLATE ZUCCHINI BREAD
2 1/4 cups all purpose flour
½ cups cocoa powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1 3/4 cup sugar
½ cup butter (4 oz)
½ cup vegetable oil
2 eggs, large
1 tsp vanilla extract
½ cup buttermilk
2 cup unpeeled zucchini, grated
6 oz double choc chips
¾ cup chopped walnuts
DIRECTIONS:
Preheat oven 325 degrees, bake for 50 min in a buttered and floured 13” x 9” x 2” baking pan.
1. Sift flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, salt into medium bowl
2. Beat sugar, butter and oil in large bowl until well blended.
3. Add eggs 1 at a time, beating well after each addition. Beat in vanilla extract.
4. Mix in dry ingredients, alternate w/ buttermilk in 3 additions each.
5. Fold in zucchini. Mix in choc chips + nuts. Pour into pan.
Bake until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean about 50 min (maybe less in higher altitude). Cool completely in pan.
Check out my giant marrow!
giant marrow on 08-25-10
Ooo wee! Check out this giant marrow (which is actually a giant zucchini)! I don’t know how one measures for weight but I have several really big ones. One will go to the State Fair and the other up to the Rocky Mountain Giant Vegetable Growers weigh off in Colorado if I can get it to last that long. It has been really fun growing it this year and watching the marrows grow. The Plant does fine in the heat and ultraviolet rays (we are 7000 ft high here in Santa Fe). No wilting at all. Grows like crazy. The only thing I will change next year is that it will go in the giant pumpkin patch where it will have more room to grow. It can duke it our with the giant pumpkins! Right now it is growing over everything and I already hacked it back twice! This one came from a seed from Brad Wuersten in the Netherlands who has the European World Record for it over there and was kind enough to give me a seed from one of his giant marrows.
My 895 Grande pumpkin, Kong hits 105 lbs!
My 895 Grande pumpkin whom I’ve now named ‘Kong’ (as in King) is 24 days old and has put on 15 lbs a day for the last 2 days! Kong is long and oval shaped and just hit 105 today. My 925 N. Harp whom I’ve named ‘Harpie’ is 58 lbs and is perfectly round and beautiful, but the plant doesn’t have that many leaves while the Grande plant has an enormous amount of leaves. I’m excited about the Grande pumpkin, Kong. 6 or 7 weeks to weigh-off. Grow nagua, grow..
‘The Tomato Lady’ returns to Santa Fe Farmers Market
‘The tomato Lady’-first day sold out of Tomatoes
Yesterday I returned to our Farmers Market here in Santa Fe, NM as the ‘Tomato Lady’ and sold out of my tomatoes by 10 am.
It’s been a long wait all summer for my tomatoes to ripen and they have started but are not full blown yet. So I had some tomatoes but not a ton. In another couple of weeks, I should be overwhelmed with tomatoes. I also had Costata Romanesco and Lungo Bianco zucchini, Bennings Green Tint and Yellow Custard scallop summer squash, Fairytale eggplants, Shishito peppers, Padron peppers, Parade, Armenian cucumbers and Rattlesnake pole beans. For tomatoes I had Early Wonder, Pantano Romanesco, Goliath, Sun Sugar and Black Cherry and a few Costuluto Genovese. Hope I have lots more next week!
giantveggiegardener 