First Harvests and First Problems

First Squash and Zucchini 

 Look look! Behold, the first yellow crookneck (without much of a crook neck) and zucchini. The zuc was about 13 oz, and the squash was about 5. I could have left the squash out in the garden for a while longer, but... I wanted to eat it. So there.

I've got two more zuc's and three more squash on the vine, just waiting.

Since I'll be going on vacation on Wednesday, I'll probably pick anything that looks big enough to eat and take it along. I would rather enjoy it small than come back to find the bugs had gotten it.

The squash and zuc's aren't *officially* my first harvests - I've gotten several handfuls of strawberries so far, but they ARE the first produce from the stuff I planted from seed this year.

But along with the first harvest comes the first set of problems.



Before you, you see the bane of every garden - Blossom End Rot. I have it.

Blossom End Rot on Roma tomatoes.

 Of all my tomatoes, the Roma was the smallest and was showing the most flowers. I suppose it's decided to be the first with this year's set of problems. I went ahead and cut off three branches of young fruit. My thinking was - why let it stay on the plant when it's not going to turn out good anyway? I cut them up, tossed 'em in flour, and had fried green tomato bits. They didn't qualify as bites, but they were good!

I see some more starting on my yellow tomatoes, but all of my other bushes remain BER free. I will design a program of retaliation and prevention and see if I can't head it off at the pass, so to speak.

And I'll make lemonade from lemons and enjoy the green tomatoes.

Other news in the garden concerns mutant squash and zuc plants. Check out the below:

I've ended up with male flowers fused together (as many as three) and now I've got a male flower with two stamens, and on the right you can see two female flowers fused together. Neither was successfully pollinated, so I'll not have the amusing experience of getting to eat any mutant vegetables, but it was still cool to find.