Backyard Harvest. Agterplaas Oes

I think a report on my harvests is long overdue. Don't let the word "harvests" fool you into thinking massive, farm-scale hauls however. No, the produce harvested in a backyard garden is much more humble. It still leads to pride and joy - especially if the harvest is larger than expected. An occassion that, admittedly, didn't occur very often in my little South African patch this summer.

So here goes:

Clockwise fltr: Gem Squash/Skorsie, two Pepinos/twee Boomspanspekke, tomatoes/tamaties

One of the most successful plants in my backyard veg patch isn't a vegetable at all, but the pepino. It's like the gift that keeps on giving. I get at least one juicy pepino every week from a bush less than knee-height. Plant it if you live in a sub-tropical or moderately humid region people!

The gem squash wasn't through any effort of my own. No, a volunteer plant sprung up under my little kumquat tree. I think the manure-enriched compost might have something to do with it. The plant soon lost the fight against white powdery mildew, but not before providing us with two lovely squashes. Two might be a meager amount, but they were unexpected, so I'm appreciative.

The tomato haul has been bitterly disappointing. Blight of course. The only tomatoes that seem to flourish are the volunteer cherry tomatoes, and even they got blight in the long run.

Clockwise fltr: Brandywine Sudduths, Red Kaki, Dr Carolyn Yellow

The Red Kaki tomatoes (dark-green round tomato pictured centre-right) were a complete flop. The plants all got blight too early for the poor little tomatoes to flourish. At least I received the seeds for free haha. The blight is definitely to blame, but this cultivar seemed the most prone to it. I don't think they will get any of the valuable garden space in future.

I got some decent-sized Brandywine tomatoes. The plants also developed the dreaded blight, so most of the tomatoes had to be harvested greener than should be, but their taste was  great. No fake taste, like all those beautifully plastic-looking shop tomatoes. They are a bit mushy for my taste though. I think I will try another fleshy cultivar next year. Any suggestions?

The biggest surprise has been the Dr Carolyn Yellow tomatoes. I harvest at least a handful every day. They also lean to the mushy side when over-ripe, but they produce like little machines! They also look beautiful in salads. I don't know if this is pure coincidence, but they also seem more blight resistant than the other cultivars I tried this year. Think I will give them a go again next year.

How does your summer harvest look thus far? Winter harvest, if you're living on the other side of the equator?

Problems in my Summer Garden. Probleme en pyne in my Somertuin

Sometimes inexperience isn't the only cause for concern in my backyard garden. No, the elements can also take its toll. I planted various beans, including Lazy Housewife and Contender, mid-August and direct sowed an assortment of tomatoes the end of September. Normally these planting/sowing times would be ideal, but last year Spring we had an unusually high rainfall. Followed by an extremely wet January. Yes, we measured 165mm of rain in only the five days between 5 and 10 January 2014. Any gardener knows excess humidity causes one of the most dreaded plant diseases...

BLIGHT!!! ROES!!!

I never knew there were so many different types of blight and that some of the types were more disastrous than others. According to the sources I studied I luckily had a case of early blight in my garden. Okay, maybe no blight can be called "lucky", but at least the early type still meant some sort of harvest, whereas late blight kills a plant outright. The symptoms of early blight are discolored foliage - first yellow and then brown spots, forming concentric patterns, with no 'mould' underneath the leave. It mostly affects the leaves, and the same type of vegetables shouldn't be planted in that area for three years. Late blight attacks a whole plant, makes the fruit rot and has the mouldy stuff underneath the leaves.

As is the case with any type of blight, it is better to simply pull up the whole plant and destroy it. Do not compost! I simply couldn't get that over my heart. After all the months of nurture, watering, sweating, and this...

Dr Carolyn tomatoes/Dr Carolyn geel tamatietjies

Brandywine Sudduths tomato/Brandywine Vleestamatie

The butternuts are probably the biggest disappointment so far. Even though I used organic Waltham seed and planted a borage between the squashes to encourage bees (and oh, were they encouraged!) the little butternuts would all fall off when they were about 5cm big. I also added piles of compost. All to no avail. Then the rains came... shortly followed by an explosion of white powdery mildew. I was fed-up; I wanted to pull the whole lot out. Then the mother showed me this:

A little one, but a butternut nonetheless/My eie botterskorsie; eie en enigste sover

Safe to say that the butternuts are all still in the ground. Covered with mildew, but still producing little squashes. I might be a pessimist at times, but that doesn't stop me from hoping one or two of them will survive, like the little sucker in the photo.

What are your biggest concerns in your garden at the moment?