The Nat's Squash

Hey Nat - here's your butternut squash. You should come visit it some time ;-).

Butternut Squash

Ultra Girl places 1st in Toronto Tomato Olympics

I harvested my first two tomatoes this morning, two ultra girls from separate plants. It was too tempting so I cut a slice and taste one - it's a small to medium sized fruit with low acid and mild flavour. The best tomato I have tasted since the rooftop harvest ended last year!

First Ultra Girls and Sheppard Pepper

In addition, I counted 9 yellow peppers on one of the plants. It's hard to believe because it has barely more than 9 leaves! I'm expecting a bumper crop.

Fruit laden and beginning to ripen - yellow peppers

Some plants seemed to have suffered during our prolonged heat wave. One brandywine plant blossoms all looked fried. I thought it could be either lack of nutrients, lack of pollination, or heat stroke. The pollination doesn't seem to be the problem though since most other plants have been pollinated. I can't deal with the heat stroke - other than to provide ample water. So I added eggs shells and fertilizer to everything last week. The struggling brandywine now has new blossoms on it so we'll see what transpires. All the other tomato varietals are doing well with lots of fruit and blossoms.

You go (Ultra) Girl!

The new irrigation system has been put to the test over the last week with the temperatures reaching 36.3 C on Friday afternoon. We went up to the rooftop Saturday once the heat wave had subsided and according to my cheapo handheld water meter (which is nonetheless quite useful) all of the buckets had adequate water supply. The plants are growing well with loads of blossoms as well as fruit coming on several. I harvested more cucumber and zucchini and it looks like the first tomato is likely to be and Ultra Girl... you go girl!