Peaking too Early?

In the relentless battle that Man vs Carrot has become. Jenkobianco aka Pauly put the seed in my mind that I might have peaked too early. "Rumour has it that you peaked in your late teens"\ he would say. "A bit too early, just like your vege patch".

"Better to have peaked early, than not at all" I would lamely retort.

But I"m starting to wonder if he's right.

Here's my patch as at the 23rd of October taken from my new undercover pergola.

The tatas - Sebago's bred in Maine USA in the 1930's but now Australias most popular variety.

There's a crop of Pontiac under the ground behind these. The bushes have subsided and the globe carrot "Rolly Polly" planted on top. Hopefully the little stores of carb hidden under the carrots will become useful sources of energy and bartering (See the rules of Man V Carrot- bartering with appropriate grovelling is allowed and indeed expected).

The Queensland Blue pumpkin is away. This is it as of the 23rd. As I write this 4 days later it has doubled in size. I'm not expecting to eat pumkin during the challenge week starting 2nd Jaunary 2012, but I'm hoping that it will crawl up on the shed roof before too long and we'll have an autumnal feast of roasted pumpkin in extra virgin olive oil and pumpkin soup with EVOO drizzed on top.

Now the beans. The front row is my genetically chosen "Selection 2010". They look the part. Full germination and racing along. The row behind is "Bountiful Baby" and the back row looking a bit worse for wear at this stage is "Tender Delight".

Now to the main event - Tomatoes. I've got a mix of my favourite varieties - Mighty Red and Impoved Apollo, with a row of mixed untried varieties. More on these in the next post.

Here's an Apollo. Clearly an Apollo 11 in flower.

Be Afraid Pauly.... be very afraid.....

If this isn't the best cherry tomato ever bred I'll go he. Now over 4 feet tall and double the size of all others planted the same time, here it is.... Pink Pearl

And it's still going.

So my "Pink Pearls" may have peaked too early after all. But I can always let the fruit just hang there I suppose. It worked for me in the past.