Garden Update: A surprising harvest, and my tomato security sytem

I expected my potatoes to rot in the ground and I certainly wasn’t expecting many tomatoes after a terrible stinkbug infestation, but imagine my delight to venture into what I thought was a garden that was done for the season only to harvest this crop of goodies…

I actually harvested these about a week ago, but had some technical issues that prevented me from uploading the pics from my camera until a little while ago.

Yes, indeed, a month or so ago, I had checked the ground around my potatoes, and it appeared that one or two of the seed potatoes had rotted completely. Disappointing, especially since I thought the whole crop would be a bust.

As it turned out, though, the potatoes — which were grown from a sack of organic potatoes I had bought from the supermarket back in the spring — turned out to be prolific and delicious. In fact, I think they tasted even better than the parent potatoes! I remember the bag of potatoes I had purchased tasted a little sweet, which is probably why I didn’t go through them quickly enough and ended up with rooting spuds in my pantry. The potatoes produced in my garden, however, are just perfect! Some of them were humongous! In fact, I’ve never seen russets so large!

My tomatoes, on the other hand, have provided another sort of excitement. I planted Romas, Beefsteaks and Cherry tomatoes at the beginning of the spring. I abandoned the Cherry tomatoes since they didn’t seem to do well in my window boxes (the coconut liners were a bust.) The Beefsteaks and Romas were producing tons of fruit early, but just as they started nearing the ripe stage, we were hit with an infestation of stink bugs. I tried dealing with them and salvaging what I could, but eventually, because of my determination to keep the garden organic, it seemed the bugs would win. Imagine my surprise to wander into my garden last week only to see my tomato plants bursting with fruit — toppling over, in fact — and it’s all thanks to this beautiful girl…

She, and what appeared to be her twin sister, are two garden spiders (Argiope aurantia) who had made their webs just above and inside of my tomato plants. Isaac and I were fortunate enough to spot them just in time to watch one of them catch a grasshopper in her web and the spin it up in a matter of seconds! Now, granted, I am not worried about what the grasshopper would have done to my tomato plants, but I did see other little meals already packed up and ready to go in their webs, and my tomatoes looked far healthier and far less buggy. I thank God that the spiders came in to stake their claim over my garden to keep the pests at bay, at least over these plants, otherwise, I have no doubt that my tomatoes would have gone completely to waste.

As it stands now, though, my tomato plants still have tons of fruit on the vines and I expect a good bit more, Lord willing. My tomatillos are nearing maturity, but aren’t quite there yet.

My jalapeños have also done quite nicely and still have a good many peppers ripening on the plant. I still have a few of the white onions left from earlier in the season, so plenty of good stuff to make homemade salsa from.

Considering we’ve had an ultra-hot summer and little rain, I’m delighted with how well my Back to Eden garden has done. Plants that I was sure we’d lose to various elements have surprised us time and time again. We have enjoyed, and plan to continue to enjoy, harvests from this garden for months to come. In fact, we’re already thinking of the fall garden we hope to plant when the worst of summer is over. So stay tuned for updates…