Some of The Last Plants That Will be Growing Until the First Ground Freeze

Right now most of the garden plants are done with the exception of cool weather plants and a couple of eggplants.  I have picked an eggplant from each of my plants this season, but I am getting a second crop from a couple of my plants.  Since this week a frost may occur I might have to pick them prematurely before the cold ends the summer season for good this year.

I am also growing a cool weather crop for the fall including some broccoli, kale, brussel sprouts, and a few plants of celery.  I even have rhubarb which I started this season which will hopefully last through the winter once I place some straw over it for protection from the freezing cold.

The only plants that I added into the garden this fall was my kale.  Although kale can be grown in the spring I have found that growing them in the fall is much easier and there is much more room to grow a couple of rows of this delicious plant.  Since they are easy to freeze and store it makes them the perfect leaf for any season.
 

All the other plants were planted in the springtime and have endured the hot temperatures that came during this summer.  Since I plant a sun king hybrid of broccoli they are able to withstand the heat and still produce good sized heads and side shoots.  Right now I am working on two broccoli plants and I have been harvesting broccoli from them since sometime in late July or August.  They are still good and both plants are continuing to supply me with more broccoli each week.

Brussel sprouts and celery I have not harvested yet even though they were planted all the way back in the springtime.  I will have to plant them a little bit earlier and probably start both of them inside in small pots or possibly peat pots. 

The good news is that the heat did not damage them and I still might be able to pick them once they are ready for harvesting.  My celery might be ready in a couple of weeks and my brussel sprouts might soon be ready for picking.  At least my brussel sprout plant is producing sprouts on the stem and in-between the leaves.  I can’t wait to start harvesting all these fall crop plants

Season Cooling off With Very Little Summer Crops to Harvest

The weather here has been getting cooler over the past couple of weeks and those hot humid days are probably over for this year.  I don’t expect to get much more summer crops this year except for some beans, cherry tomatoes, steakhouse tomatoes, peppers, and maybe decent sized eggplants.  What I have in melons is it for this year and now is the time to start picking them off the vines.

At the moment I have picked one crimson sweet watermelon and two honeydew melons from their vines this past week.  None of the other melons were ripe yet and have not fallen off the vine which is an indication that they are ripe enough to be eaten.

Although weather is cooler I am still seeing flowers on my eggplants and one of them actually is producing a few vegetables on the plant.  I am not certain how big they will get with the lack of sunlight and warm weather, but I am happy that I could get a few more from this season.  As long as a frost doesn’t occur for some time I could get a couple of decent sized eggplants.

Peppers and cucumbers are also still producing flowers, but I think that they are pretty much done for the year.  I think the last cucumbers are on the vines right now and are probably ripe enough to be harvested.  Peppers are done producing flowers and a couple of them have fruit on them that I will have to pick either today or sometime this week.

 I will soon have to cover my strawberries for the winter, but I am going to wait a little bit and put straw on top of them most likely in October.  I will also have to cover my rhubarb this season since it is the first winter for these plants.  I probably could pick some of the stems, but I want to wait until next season in order to prevent from picking too many stems this year and possibly harming the plant.  Plus rhubarb needs at least one cold winter to produce tasty stems for cooking

More Tomatoes are the Subject for Today

It seems that all I have been talking about is my tomatoes.  Fortunately I have been getting plenty of them this season especially when it comes to cherry tomatoes.  300 cherry tomatoes were picked last week while today I beat that by getting 490 ripe cherry tomatoes.  It looks like more salsa will have to be made with these types of tomatoes.

On the other hand I picked plenty of Roma and steakhouse tomatoes this past week as well.  I had over forty pounds of Roma tomatoes that needed to be used otherwise they would become rotten and not good for anything.  Luckily I made plenty of sauce with them and was able to fill up plenty of glass jars with this sauce.  I will be using most of it over the winter as well as the salsa from the cherry tomatoes.

I also had picked many steakhouse tomatoes which are basically good for sandwiches.  I love BLT and have been slicing large pieces of tomato for my lunch.  Having a large slice of fresh tomato on your sandwiches is one of the best things of the summertime.  It is one of the many things I look forward to each year.

Now that I have discussed my tomatoes it is time to talk about other vegetables in my garden.  First of all I picked some more pole beans today and will probably be freezing some of them for use in a couple of months.  I only picked a small batch, but there is still plenty of time with plenty of more beans to be picked real soon.

My melons are doing well and I don’t know exactly when, but some of them are going to be harvested sometime this month hopefully.  My watermelon will most likely be the first since it was planted first and the first to generate a melon.  I have a couple of cantaloupes and a couple of honeydew melons that are still on the vine not ready for picking.

Two Eggplants Ready To be Made Into a Delicious Meal Right Now

I will keep this post short since not much has been going on except for harvesting plenty of tomatoes of all three types and some eggplants this week.  There are three eggplant plants in the garden at the moment and they all have a large eggplant on them that was perfect for picking this week.

Right now I have only picked two of them and left the third one out in the garden for the moment and will probably harvest that one real soon.  The other two were picked this past week and I will be using one of them today for eggplant Parmesan.  I will also be using homemade tomato sauce that I have stored over the past couple of years.  These were made with my Roma tomatoes.

Tomatoes of all types are continuing to grow on the plants and I am continuing to harvest all of them from week to week.  I don’t pick them every day and instead pick them only a couple of days per week to make certain that enough of them are ripe for harvesting. 

I am enjoying both my cherry tomatoes and steakhouse tomatoes.  I have been making slices out of my steakhouse tomatoes and placing them on my sandwiches or just eating as is.  I have been placing my cherry tomatoes in my salads and eating them hole a few times per week.

This past week I picked a large harvest of both steakhouse tomatoes and cherry tomatoes.  There were 260 cherry tomatoes that were picked yesterday along with a half a dozen of steakhouse tomatoes weighing over a pound each ripe for harvesting. 

This just means more slices of tomatoes will have to be eaten each day in order to go through these large sized tomatoes.  More salads will have to be eaten in order to go through all these cherry tomatoes that I keep picking each week.

Hundreds of Cherry Tomatoes are Just Waiting to be Harvested

Although there plenty of cherry tomatoes to be picked that doesn’t mean that there are no other types of tomatoes or vegetables ready for harvesting.  In fact I have been picking steakhouse tomatoes throughout the past week and have been enjoying them on a daily basis with my sandwiches.  Roma tomatoes are also just about ready to be turned into sauce once I pick just a few more in the next couple of days.

Eggplants are confirmed to finally be pollinated now that all three plants have at least one good size vegetable thriving.  I am going to wait as long as possible in order to get them to get them as large as possible before harvesting them.  Making eggplant Parmesan out of them is the best meal to make with this unique vegetable.

My sunflowers that I have planted through the season at different times are now producing their flower heads and should soon be opening.  The first ones I planted back in April or May are the first to start producing heads and will most likely be the first to open.  I would say that they will start opening very soon and maybe by the end of this week.

My melons are doing quite well and most of my vines have at least one melon growing on them.  I have a couple of crimson sweet watermelons that are growing the best out of all of them. 

My pumpkins have also started to ripen and one of the first ones is pretty much totally orange in color and probably ready to pick soon.  While the first one is done ripening I still have others that have just started producing pumpkins.  I hope that this new one will be able to get to a good size even though it is late producing a pumpkin.

My cucumber vines are on their way to producing plenty of vegetables.  Most of them have plenty of flowers which means I should have plenty of cucumbers in the near future from most of them.  I picked three of them today from three separate plants.  I can’t wait to many more of them.

Short Corn Season with Plenty of Ears Harvested

Although the season for corn was a little short I actually got quite a bit of ears from this variety of corn.  Most of the stalks had multiple ears for picking while previous types of corn that I have planted previously only had one and sometimes two.  Ambrosia is definitely one to grow if you are interested in picking more than just one ear per stalk.

Many of the corn that was picked was frozen so that I can have a little taste of summer during the cold winter season.  I still have others that have been cooked and need to be eaten right away.  As long as you keep corn in the fridge they should be fine for several weeks.   So far it has only been a week or two since I have cooked the first harvest of corn.

Although now that corn is done for 2018 I still have plenty of other vegetables that still need care for a few more months.  For instance my peppers have been growing since I planted them a while ago and it is just about time to pick some peppers off the plants.  One pepper was picked this week and with the amount of flowers on the plants I am sure to get many others this season.

Another harvest of cucumbers was completed this afternoon and they look quite well for consumption.  I wanted to make sure that they stopped growing on the vine before picking them.  I don’t like picking them when they are ripe, but instead wait until they stop growing to their full size.

Not only were cherry tomatoes picked, but on one of my tomato plants there was a steakhouse tomato that was surely ripe enough for picking.  I like to pick them just before they are ready to turn red.  This is the prime time to pick them and they will last a little bit longer than if I was to wait for it to turn a dark red color.  Picking these tomatoes will last longer and stay firm for a good duration

It is Summertime and Ears of Corn are Ready

It wouldn’t be summer without having corn on the cob.  Yesterday was a good day for harvesting much of my corn that I have planted this year.  I would say that I harvested at least half of the ears that were growing on the stalks and there are still many more that need to be picked.  I plan to pick many more sometime this week at the latest.

Thirty pounds of corn is definitely a good amount coming from about forty to fifty plants.  I could have picked a little bit more, but then I would have had some that were not quite ripe enough for eating.  I would say that there are a couple dozen of them still out there that are waiting to be picked very soon.

Then there were my cucumbers that I just noticed were definitely not going to get any bigger sitting on the vine.  Two of them from two different vines were ready to be picked so I made sure that I cut them off and brought them inside.  I ate one of them already in a simple salad that I had for dinner.  After my dinner I had some of my corn that was amazingly delicious.

Along with the salad there were three cherry tomatoes that I had also picked from the garden.  Not many are that ripe yet, but I am sure in the next few weeks or days hundreds of them will start ripening all at once.  So far I have only picked three cherry tomatoes for the season.

Cherry tomatoes were not the only tomatoes that happened to be ready to be picked.  I had one Roma tomato from one of my plants that was grown quite early.  It started ripening about a week or so ago and yesterday it was time to take it off the bush.

Onions Up and Done With Corn and Others on the Way

My onions were picked a week or two ago and I needed to dry them before they can be used.  I dried them outside for about a week or so.  They were dry enough on Tuesday and that is when I decided to bring them in for the first time.  Just about thirty pounds was picked in total along with 170 total onions that were picked from the soil.  This was definitely a good harvest this season for onions.


Corn is very close to harvesting and within a few days or so the majority of them should be ready for serving.  I only got a couple of them so far and these were most likely the early ones that you have every season.  Once most of them are ready I will probably pick them all in one day or within a couple of days consecutively. 



Beans is another vegetable that happened to be ready for harvesting.  Unlike corn I was able to pick quite a few beans for the first of the season.  Approximately three pounds was gathered from all the vines that are growing outside.  Although there are not as many beans growing this was a good number for the start of the bean harvest.  I hope to get many more in the real near future.

Pumpkins, melons, tomatoes, and more are beginning to show the fruits of my labor.  I have many tomatoes that are growing and they are sure starting to turn with cherry and Roma most likely the first to the dinner table.

I think the next vegetables that I will be picking include cucumbers and or peppers.  I have a cucumber that is just about ready, but I want to leave out there for another day or two.  I don’t want to pick it too soon before I have a chance to add lime to the soil.  I don’t want to pick this cucumber and have it taste bitter. 

Melons will most likely be last along with the pumpkins that I have out there.  Only a couple of melons and a few pumpkins are growing for the moment.  The only thing that I am waiting for are my eggplants to begin showing signs of harvest material.  They do have flowers which are a good sign and hopefully they will begin producing fruit in the near future.

Many Fruits and Vegetables Appearing on Most Plants and Vines

It looks like this is the month for harvesting which may include tomatoes, beans, zucchini, melons, and many more.  At the moment I will be definitely harvesting zucchini, onions, corn, beans, and possibly cherry tomatoes.  All the others I might not be picking this month, but most likely in the month of August at the latest.

First on the list is between zucchini and onions.  Since most of my onion plants have fallen over this is the sign that I use when it is time to pull them from the soil.  I would say that my onions are going to be the next harvested vegetable from my garden.  Although I don’t use them right away because I let them dry in the hot sun, my zucchinis may be the first to be used for a meal sooner.



I have a few plants that have zucchini vegetables on them.  The earlier planted zucchini plants will have the first crack at harvesting.  The seeds that were planted a little bit later will obviously take just a little bit longer for some vegetables to be growing from them.



My pole beans are also on the list to be harvested very soon.  Some of the vines already have beans that are ready for picking which is quite soon for them.  The other vines are still in the process of growing and producing flowers and are not ready for harvesting just yet.  I will probably pick all the beans that are ready at the moment in order for the plants to continue producing pods.



Corn is also early this year and is usually picked in August, but this may be due to the new variety that I planted this season.  This is most likely an early picked corn that is growing in the garden right now.  I feel that I will be picking them this month at the latest.



Tomatoes I am also looking forward to because I have many plants this season and I might have enough to last a little bit longer than usual.  I also use many of them for sauces and salsas so none of these tomatoes will be wasted.  Whatever is not used for sauce will be used for sandwiches or salads.

It Looks Like Blueberry Season is in Full Force

Today was a good day to start picking some more blueberries from the garden.  Most of the time the month of July is when you need to start picking them because many of them should be ripe by this time.  It is not uncommon to start picking them at the end of June, but this year it looks like they were not ready enough for harvesting until July.  The good news is that I picked much more today than I did in my very first blueberry harvest.

Five and a quarter pounds is what I got today and the first harvest was barely a pound if not a little bit less.  I still have plenty of berries out there and I should be able to have a couple more harvests with plenty of berries. 

My tomato plants are looking good with plenty of tomatoes growing on them at the moment.  Cherry tomatoes are usually the first to be picked, but I actually had a Roma tomato growing on one of my plants since I placed them in the garden.  This year I am not sure if I will be picking a Roma for the first harvest or a cherry tomato like usual.






Normally my zucchini plants have already started growing on my plants, but since I planted them a little bit late they are getting their flowers late as well.  They are now just showing signs of flowers of both male and female.  Only one plant looks promising that I could be picking a zucchini very soon as long as this flower was pollinated.



My rhubarb plant that I added to the garden this season is doing quite well even though it is quite hot right now.  I still won’t be picking any of the stems this year, but I am hopeful that next year I will be able to pick at least a few of them to do something with.  It takes at least one cold winter to get them producing many delicious stems year after year.