Removed Onions from Soil and Letting them Dry

One of the first things that you need to do with onions is to make sure that they are completely dry before you bring them inside.  They are very susceptible to fungus and mold and if they are wet they can easily spread it to each other rather quickly.  I actually just pull them out of the soil and sit them on top or sometimes on a table.  If they are on a table they should be able to dry much quicker in my opinion.

Here in this picture you can see that I left them in the totes on top of the soil to let them dry in the hot sun.

The photo above shows onions that I placed on a table to let them dry quicker hopefully.

Tomatoes harvested and they include all three types: Roma, cherry, and steakhouse.

I picked five pounds of beans in two days from both rows.  I still have plenty of beans on the vines, but they were not ready and I should have another harvest by the weekend.

There were also four cucumbers ready and I scooped them up as well.

Checked Out First Pepper and Many More Cucumbers on the Way

I had a pepper growing on one of the plants that looked like it had reached its potential size and I decided on picking it today.  I could have left it on the plant and it probably would have been fine and maybe it would have grown to even a bigger size.  I will never know how big it could have became.  Right now it is a good size and it is perfect for use in meals, salads, or even salsas.

About the size of a baseball and that is definitely a good size for any home or organic garden.  Obviously if they were any bigger I wouldn't complain, but as long as these peppers taste sweet that is all that I am looking forward to testing.  Non sweet peppers would just be a big disappointment, but definitely fixable for the other peppers to come.

Just a small pepper flower that signals that many more are to come.

Many cucumbers are on the way as well when I looked through my plants I saw that there were quite a few vegetables growing on the vines.  Sometimes you have to look real good because many times the leaves can easily cover them and you might miss some that were ready.  Today was one of those days and luckily I happened to see it not too late. 

It was only one cucumber but it was still a large sized one that I didn't want to get any bigger because it could have a bad taste if it gets too big.  When I cut it from the vine it had a very sweet smell so that is a very good sign.  Only time will tell how good this cucumber tastes.

With that said I want to show you some others that will be ready in the near future.

I actually have many more, but these are a few that I wanted to show you that should be ready by the end of the week or sooner.

Picking Pole Beans and Pulling Up Onions Coming Soon

From what I can tell from looking through the garden is that the next vegetable that I will be picking for the 2015 season is pole beans and then onions.  I have some peppers that are also just about ready for harvesting, but in this post I am going to focus on onions and pole beans.

Pole beans are one of the most time consuming of vegetables to pick, but is definitely worth the time to pick them all or at leas most of them.  They grow quite fast and once they start to produce their vines the flowers are quickly produced and the beans will get very large quickly.  It only takes them about a week to get to full size once they have been pollinated.  You can see from the photos below how big they are capable of getting.

I leave them on the vine in order to get them as big as possible before they beans start to dry out and become not good for eating.  I will probably do a small harvest to pick up all the ones that are ready and will not get any bigger. 

Also watching for flowers is another good sign that I will be getting more beans in the season.  Pole beans or any type of bean including bush types need potassium for flower growth and I made sure that I supplied them with kelp meal which is a perfect fertilizer for these plants.  Hopefully they will continue to produce flowers and beans all season long.

Onions are also on the verge of harvesting and I think that they will be ready this weekend.  Most of the stems have fallen over and I have not been watering them since the beginning of this week.  Drying them out allows the onions to dry and makes them much easier to store without worrying about mold or other fungus growing on them in storage.

You can see that they are no longer standing up on their own and this is due mainly to the weather and hot temperatures that we have been receiving.  Once the warm or hot temperatures arrive they are pretty much done for the season.

It is Time for Ripening Fruits Such as Tomatoes

Tomatoes and melons are the focus of this blog post and only a couple of tomatoes are starting to turn red while my melons are just getting bigger each day.  This is all you can really do for melons is watch them get bigger and bigger.  I am also giving them more fertilizer because many of the plants are producing many cantaloupes that are sucking up nutrients to feed these melons.

The two melons above are small to medium sized cantaloupes that are hopefully going to get much larger before I have to harvest them.  So far their size is increasing with each passing day and at this point this is when they are heavy feeders to create a big enough melon.  I like large melons and I am doing everything I can to get them as large as possible.  Below is the watermelon that is growing as well.

Now at the moment my melons are not even close to harvest time, but one fruit is close and that would be my tomatoes.  Only a couple of tomatoes have begun ripening and one of them is a Roma tomato and some cherry tomatoes have started as well.  In a couple of weeks with good weather I should see them bright red or pink and ready for picking.  I love fresh tomatoes and there is nothing better than this when growing an organic garden.

Here you can tell that it is an orange color and it only started turning just yesterday.  In just two days this is how far it has gone with the ripening process.  As you can see it doesn't take that long at all.  With sunny days it will ripen even faster so hopefully the weather will hold up and the sun will get these fruits pink to red in color.

Melon Plants Starting to Produce Fruit

One of the most important things that I check in my garden is if my vine plants are producing fruit or at least flowers that will lead to having fruit.  For example I noticed that some of my melons are producing flowers, but still don't have any fruit that has been pollinated.  On the other hand I have a couple of vines that do have some fruit that should continue to grow each day.

Here are some cantaloupes and watermelon fruits that are beginning to grow as of today.

This is just one cantaloupe that I have on my vines.  I have three total and if you count the watermelon that that means I have four melons total.

This is one watermelon that I have so far.  With just two plants I should hopefully be able to harvest two watermelons.  The one below is from the first plant that was transplanted early in the season.

Cucumbers are also growing quite well and a few more that will be ready by this weekend are just waiting to be harvested.  I ate the first one today and it tasted real sweet and no bitterness at all.  This is what I hope for every garden season.  Check out all the cucumbers that will be picked very soon.

Aside from melons and cucumbers I am getting some beans starting to grow as well.  I happened to get them earlier than last season, but this is just one plant that has a bean.  When a large enough harvest comes I will be sure that I let you know.

Some peppers are coming through as well.

The Cucumber Season has Begun

I wasn't sure if I was going to pick a cucumber today, because it didn't look like it was ready this past weekend.  I though it would need a couple more days, but I guess with all the hot and sunny weather it was able to quickly grow to its fullest size.  I took a look at it today and I just wanted to pick it immediately.  I can't wait to cut into it and have a taste of this delicious cucumber. 

Many more are coming and it is just a matter of time before I have too many.  This is what I am hoping for this season.  Last season was not the best and I am looking to make up from last year with a large amount of cucumbers in 2015.  I have plenty of plants that can do it I just need to make sure that they are getting all the nutrients they need to continue growing and producing cucumbers.

I am glad with the size of the cucumber especially for the first harvest.  I saw another one that looked like it was ready for picking.  I will probably pick that one in a couple of days of good weather.  Today it has been raining off and on.  I still was able to get some work done including adding mulch to my beans, corn, and harvesting cucumbers.

On the other hand my fall plants are growing good for now and I made sure to thin them out this year to avoid having multiple plants in one spot.  This would be a problem especially when growing them in plastic cups.  One was left to each pot.  Since I love broccoli more than most people I want to make sure that I get plenty that I can use over the Winter and decided to grow ten more pots.  Now I can potentially have twenty broccoli plants for the fall season.  Hopefully all the seeds will grow very quickly.

Getting the Bean Vines to Start Climbing up Simple Ropes

One of the best things that I can do for my bean plants is to finish setting up my bean trellis which requires rope for climbing purposes.  I like to finish this process once my beans begin growing and start showing signs of vine climbing.  This would usually include vines that are starting to grab onto everything in sight.  It is actually quite unique that they are able to climb basically anything. 

It is best to place a fence for them to climb, but I have found that ropes are just as good.  This has worked for me and I would definitely recommend using something like this for your pole beans.  Bush beans will not need this at all.

If you are growing pole beans you may have to untie them from whatever they are climbing and place them on the ropes that you have added.  Look at the picture below.

Removing weeds from the garden can be a big pain and if you have ever gardened before then you know exactly what I mean.  Mulch is the best way to eliminate and suffocate weeds from your plants.  I added some mulch to my corn because I don't want to weed them for the rest of the year.  Their roots are too close to the surface that if you start weeding aggressively like myself then you can easily harm the roots and the plant may be stunted or even die.  A thick layer of mulch will solve this issue.

My fall crop is on schedule as my seeds of cabbage and broccoli have began sprouting and within a month or so will be placed in the garden for producing delicious food hopefully.  Once I thin them out in a couple of days or so it will be much more noticeable of what they are.  They start out the same which includes all the brassica such as kale, cabbage, broccoli, etc.

Time for More Harvesting and Beginning to Plant a Fall Crop

This year I decided to grow another fall crop and I wasn't sure exactly what I was going to be planting besides broccoli and cabbage.  I was hoping to get some kale seeds, but unfortunately I was unable to obtain them and now I am going to just be focusing on broccoli and cabbage.  Since I have one less plant to worry about I decided on planting exactly ten seeds of cabbage and ten of broccoli.

This does not mean that I only placed one seed into each of the ten containers, but I am using ten containers for each of my fall plants.  I probably placed about four or five seeds into each container making certain that at least one of those seeds will germinate in each cup.  I used a mixture of topsoil and some worm compost that I have been saving to use for this time of the season.  I love using this mixture because it produces vibrant and healthy plants that can last quite awhile in these containers.

They will be staying outside for the rest of the season instead of growing them inside.  It is better for them to be outside in order to adjust to the temperatures immediately and won't have to worry about hardening them off.  They also will get much more sun by being outside as well which is the main reason why I keep them out there.

I have also been harvesting today even though I was planting my fall crop.  For now zucchinis are the most popular in the garden and they are growing really fast.  I started feeding the plants today because a few of them needed to be replenished with nutrients that they require in order to continue producing vegetables that I can pick later on.  This also helps them produce flowers which are much more important in the long run.

I have pumpkins growing on the vines as well which I am looking forward to picking which will not come at any time soon.

Four is the count right now and I think there might be another one somewhere in there which I will have to look for tomorrow.

Cucumbers are also on the rise today and I saw the first one of the season fully pollinated.

It's not quite ready and probably another week or so it should be approaching the point where I can begin harvesting it.  Only time will tell.