Harvesting the First Vegetables May be Just Around the Corner

So far the only thing that I have been harvesting is mainly leaf plants including spinach and lettuce.  Now that spinach is over and lettuce season coming to close it is almost time to start harvesting vegetables that are beginning to grow in the garden.  The first of the season would most likely be zucchini.

My zucchini plants are growing quite well and at least most of them or even all of them are producing vegetables at a very fast speed.  They started flowering about a week or so ago and are now producing very large zucchinis and it will not be long before I start harvesting them.

This is just one and there are many that are this size or even bigger.  I would say by this week I will be harvesting zucchini.  This will be the non leaf vegetable to be harvested this season.

My pumpkins are even growing good and the vines are just spreading out like crazy.  I acutally found a pumpkin that looks like it has been pollinated very recently.  I would say less than a week ago it flowered and was pollinated by the bees.  I never thought I would get a pumpkin this early, but I am not going to complain because the earlier they come the more time they have to grow that pumpkin.

This is the first pumpkin so far and there are more that have begun flowering, but I will not now if they were pollinated until another few days to a week at the most.  Once it starts getting bigger then that means it was pollinated and will start getting bigger each day.

Cucumbers are another vegetable starting to grow and flower.  I found the first fruit starting to flower yesterday that means cucumbers will be visible very soon.  There are only a couple of plants flowering, but I have only seen one fruit actually opening.

My tomato plants are growing flowers too and I am hoping that some of them will start ripening very soon.  The goal is to start picking them by mid July at the latest.  I don't think any of them will be ready by the fourth of July, but they are usually not ready by then normally.  Here is a large Roma tomato that may be the first tomato harvested this season.

Started the Process of Weeding Garden and More Lettuce Harvested

This week has been quite busy especially with all the weeding that needs to be done throughout the entire garden.  The only thing that doesn't need to be weeded is the onions that are in totes because they are all covered with mulch which keeps the weeds out and less work for me.  Luckily with all the rain that we received this week means more weeds in the garden need to be plucked from the ground.

The good thing about getting all this rain is that now I can collect more grass clippings from mowing the lawn which I can then use on plants that cannot compete with many weeds.  Some of the plants that can use mulch would include the onions in the garden or even my corn which have a shallow root system.  I can even use it for my tomatoes that do not like uneven watering and having a mulch to retain water can help that.  It all depends what I will use these grass clippings for.

I also collected some more lettuce leaves that needed picking which came after the rain.  Picking them in the morning is supposed to allow the leaves to create a more crisp and firm leaf and supposed to last long.  I am not sure if this is true, but I did pick over 50 leaves this week.  All of them came from my iceberg lettuce plants.

Two containers full of these leaves was a good amount to collect from about a dozen iceberg plants.  I still have my ruby glow plants that are continuing to grow and I hope to start picking these leaves in the very near future.  I know I have been saying this for awhile, but I want to pick them when the time is right which is quickly approaching.

As usual I had to compare these leaves to my foot in order to show you the average size of these leaves.  They are quite large and at least they are all green as compared to what you can get from the store.

Along with the picking of lettuce weeding was done throughout the entire garden.  This included tomatoes, squash, cucumbers, melons, peppers, beans, and corn.

Here are a few pictures of the weeded plants.

Just Started Harvesting First Strawberries

I have been watching my strawberries very closely because many of them are red but are just not quite ready to be harvested.  I did find a few that were ready to be picked and that is what I did earlier in the week.  This has been about the average time that I would normally pick these berries.  In terms of timing they have began ripening as they have for the past several years.

A good size and were very tasty after I took a couple to see if they were sweet enough and juicy enough to be harvested.

I am also getting blueberries, but they are no where close to being harvested.  They take a much longer time to ripen as compared to strawberries.  July is usually when I start picking them on average.  Sometimes at the end of June I may pick the first of the season.

Since we are discussing fruit I thought it would be wise to notice a tomato is starting to grow on one of my plants.  It is probably a Roma as it has an oval shape which is the only shape that Romas will take.  It probably isn't a cherry or a steakhouse tomato so I am going with Roma.  In a couple days when it gets bigger I should be able to determine what exactly it is.  Stay tuned to find out what type of tomato is growing in my garden.

Getting My Lettuce to the Kitchen Table

I was deciding on whether or not to begin picking my lettuce a week ago or to wait a little bit longer for larger leaves.  I think I made the right choice by picking them today and they look really good and I am looking forward to eating them.  I still have spinach left so I will have to finish up my spinach before I can start eating my iceberg lettuce.  No worry though because they will go fast and soon I will be enjoying the great taste of my organic lettuce.

I am really looking forward to picking my ruby glow hybrid which is what I grew this season as something different that I haven't grown before.  It is also a romaine type lettuce which is much more healthier and comes with an antioxidant which is why it is red in color compared to the traditional green iceberg lettuce.

Check out the large leaves that were removed from my plants today.

Two pounds in total was collected and 39 leaves.  I gave them a quick rinse and placed them in the refrigerator to keep them firm and crisp just the way I like them.  The ruby glow hybrid leaves are not quite ready and I am waiting for them to produce more leaves before picking them. 

Probably a good layer of mulch will help them out quite a bit.  I don't like to let the soil dry out too long otherwise they might bolt or go to seed prematurely.  Mulch can easily solve this probably especially when I use grass clippings.  This is the best type of mulch for keeping out weeds and retaining moisture.