While Crops are Finishing Some are Still Thriving

 At the moment all my corn is completed and so are my beans and zucchini.  I did not get a good crop of beans this season due to I only had a couple of vines that sprouted and they were planted later than I would have liked.  corn I was able to get a good harvest from the two types that I had planted this season. 

 I was able to save and freeze them in order to have them during the Winter at some point.  I also got plenty of zucchini and was happy with the entire harvest of these squash plants.  The last of the squash would be my pumpkins which are just about ready for picking.  There are only two of them that are not ripe yet, but with time and sun they will be ready by October.

Kale and broccoli are the two cool weather plants that I added into the garden during the springtime.  They are normally for the fall and they were most likely not supposed to survive the summer months except for broccoli.  At the moment these are the two plants that are continue to thrive now that cool weather is arriving and the hot humid days are over with. 

 My broccoli is a hybrid plant that is made to withstand the harsh hot weather of the summer months while kale is just for cool weather.  Luckily my kale was able to survive the summer and looks like I will be continuing to cut many of the leaves.  The rainy summer this year was probably one of the reasons why my kale was able to get through the summer.  Both of these plants will probably last far into the fall season.

I also planted some peas that are also another cool weather plants except I decided to plant them in the fall rather the spring.  I planted them in the spring last season and they didn't produce or grow that well and that is why I am trying out planting them in the fall.  I was also going to plant radishes, but in the end just stuck with my pea seeds instead.  I planted them a little while ago and I am hoping that they sprout sometime in the near future.

One last thing that I wanted to mention was the digging up of my potatoes.  This was the latest new harvest since the last post and wanted to let you know.  For the amount of plants that were in the garden I think I got a pretty decent harvest.  I would say that each plant had at least two potatoes and they were about the size of a baseball.  Next year I hope to plant much more potatoes similar to last season in order for them to last long into the fall.

Taking Onions out of the Totes and Eggplants of the Plants

 The month of August is never the time when onions are completely done and dry them in the sun and get them ready for consumption.  This was an unusual year for the garden due to rainy weather, but was definitely a good change compared to last season with very little rain throughout the summer months.  This might be why they were not ready for harvesting during July which is when I tend to pick them out of the ground.  Even with all this rain I still was able to pick them and have a decent size harvest.  I also got much larger red onions which I was happy with and hopefully these onions alone will last to the new year.

 Eggplants are also another vegetable I have been harvesting more recently and have already eaten the first of the season.  I have about five plants of eggplants and each of them has at least two or more vegetables growing on them.  Some are small, but most of them are about medium size and I can do plenty with these vegetables once I start picking them on a consistent basis.

 

My tomatoes are also coming in quite well and I have already made some salsa out of my beefsteak tomatoes because I had too many and I can only eat so many BLT's every day.  I still keep the best ones for my sandwiches and still there are many tomatoes that need picking, but just waiting them to turn color.  

 

Broccoli has also been prominent in the garden with many of their heads ready to be cut from the plant.  Although I would rather pick the heads in the spring or fall this particular type of broccoli is good in warm to hotter than normal weather.  Although they can still grow in cool weather I wanted them in order to pick broccoli throughout the year.  Although it didn't work out that way I still have plenty of time to possibly pick smaller broccoli from these plants

 

.Peppers and cucumbers are still being harvested, but I think my cucumbers are done for the season with only a couple of healthy vines left producing fruit.  Peppers on the other hand are still producing vegetables and I think a couple of hot pepper plants were able to survive this season.  I was certain that none of them sprouted, but I think I was wrong and it looks like one or two possible habaneras are alive and well in the garden.  I will have to wait and see if these are the hot peppers that I tried sprouting during the early springtime.

Three Summer Crop Vegetables Harvesting Continues

 It is that time of the season where most of my vegetables are going to be ready for picking and harvesting.  So far I have been consistently picking cucumbers and zucchini and this weekend I started with harvesting my corn for the first time this season.  Corn usually ripens around the same time and I usually pick an entire row as long as they are the same type or breed of corn.  I have two rows of corn and the second row will soon be harvested in a couple of weeks.  For now I picked an early type and that is what I have been enjoying for the past few days.

The cucumber vines in the garden have been growing since the beginning of May and have been just producing cucumbers on a weekly basis.  I have been picking a harvest pretty much every week and yesterday I probably picked the most so far this summer.  I am glad I am picking plenty of cucumbers because I need to make up from last year when I only picked just a couple of cucumbers from one or two vines.  

It seems that I will be picking tomatoes next from the garden.  Many of them are ripening slow because of the cloudy and rainy weather that has been around this year.  I am sure that with a couple of days of some sun most of them will be harvest prone.  These would include all the types of tomatoes that I planted such as cherry, Roma, and beefsteak.  There was one on a plant yesterday that I should have picked, but I will wait another day before I get to enjoy it's juicy flavor.

Eggplants are another vegetable that looks like it will be ready soon.  These plants I started inside because this is one plant that needs much time to mature and it seems that they are maturing earlier than normal which is a good thing.  I would guess that all the plants have at least one eggplant growing from them and possibly more with all the flowers that they had on them.  I would guess sometime this month at least one or more eggplants will be mature enough for harvesting.

It Looks Like Plants are Starting to Produce Fruit for a Good Harvest

This is about the time that things are starting to happen and harvests will start to become common or at least once a week at the minimum.  Tomatoes will probably be the last to harvest not including my pumpkins which are always picked close to October as possible if at all.  Sometimes I have to pick my pumpkins much earlier because the plant is dead and the pumpkin can't grow or ripen anymore by being outside.  For now I am going to be focusing on vegetables that are ready or ripening right now.

 

The first new harvest for the season are my cucumbers.  I transplanted many vines this season and I also planted seeds directly in the soil as well so I have two batches of plants that I am hoping will produce many cucumbers for me.

 

I have already picked three so far this year and I am hoping to pick many more.  I have looked at the vines and I am seeing most of them with at least one or more female flowers and fruits that are getting bigger each day.  By the end of this month I hope to have at least a dozen cucumbers picked.

  Next up on the list would be my zucchini which have been growing for quite some time.  I would say around the fourth of July is when my plants began producing flowers and short after zucchini appeared on all three plants.  There are three plants, but four zucchinis that I will be picking very soon because they are large right now and only a little bit more time on the plant until it is ready to be picked and then cooked.  

My pole beans have been climbing with their vines and while this is happening they are starting to produce flowers along the way.  I think my beans might actually starting coming right after I start picking my first batch of corn.  Right now they have flowers that are opening, but no beans so far.  With the two plants that sprouted this season I am not looking to have a big harvest.

As I just mentioned my corn plants are coming through with the silks that is a sign that corn should be harvested in a couple of weeks.  This first time is a fast grower and doesn't take as long as my silver queen which I planted  in the other row.  This is the first time growing silver queen corn and I am looking forward to how it will come out this season.  Right now I will have to wait for them since they don't have any silks yet, but this early type does and should be harvesting in the near future.

Tilling, Transplanting, and Sowing for The Month of May

 This is when the garden season gets quite busy is during this month because of the many things that need to be done.  First of all tilling the rest of the garden needs to be done before I can start transplanting or sowing seeds into the garden.  I also like to wait a few days after tilling the garden before I actually start planting any seeds or adding any plants into the garden soil.  I like to let the birds in the area find as many caterpillars and bugs in the soil as they can before any planting is done.  

One of the first seeds planted into the garden were my bean seeds.  I like to have just two ten foot rows of bean plants because I find that pole bean will yield plenty of beans with this many plants.  This will definitely be enough for a summer harvest as long as most of the beans sprout.  I am hoping that this rain will get them sprouting real soon.  

June is just around the corner and this means that my June bearing strawberries should be ready for a good harvest with all this rain.  Although some of them have started turning red and even a few of them are pretty much ready for picking.   The bigger and largest harvests of strawberries will definitely come in June rather than the end of May.  Once we get a little bit more sun I am sure most of the berries will ripen and deliver a good and hopefully decent harvest for this year.

 I have two rows of corn planted, one short row of potatoes, and another large row full of cantaloupe, pumpkin, and zucchini seeds.  I planted my squash and melon seeds a little bit later because I wanted to make sure that I got my beans, corn, and tomato plants into the garden as soon as possible.  zucchini plants tend to grow fast and they don't need as much time as melons or eggplants for example.  

I still have peppers and eggplants that I need to transplant into the garden.  I was hoping to get my eggplants into the garden by this week, but ended up getting a little busy with my tomatoes instead.   This week I will at least add my eggplants into the garden and probably some of the more mature peppers as well.  Some of the younger peppers I will wait some time before adding them to the garden.

Now the Garden Season has Started with The First Transplants in The Garden

 Early to mid April happens to be the best time to start transplanting cool weather plants into the garden.  If you are using cold frames or placing row covers over your plants you can even start transplanting much sooner.  This is also a great way to extend the garden season especially in areas that are much cooler such as in northern states.  I like to do the first tiling sometime in April and do enough for adding all my springtime crops.

 

 This year I have decided on growing spinach, lettuce, potatoes, onions, and sun king broccoli which should be able to withstand the hot months and produce a decent crop.  I am still working on whether I should grow peas and or radishes.  Most likely I will plant pea because I bought a whole packet of seeds in the beginning of the year and would be a waste not to use them.

Even though these are normally springtime plants I can still plant them later and use them for a fall time crop instead.  Normally I plant kale and broccoli for a fall crop, but I decided that I would use them for a springtime crop instead.  I want to see if I can get a much better crop during the spring or if the fall is where I should keep my kale and broccoli plants.

This week was the perfect time to get my spinach and kale into the garden and the weather is still cool enough that they should be able to provide some great leaves for consumption.  I still have my lettuce and broccoli growing in pots outside, but they are not quite ready for planting.  I still have some time before the hot weather comes around and ends the spring season.  I would say in less than a month I will be putting my lettuce into the garden.  

 

I still have seeds that need to be planted indoors including many flowers that include cosmos, statice, calendula, amaranthus, queen annes lace, and some more wildflowers.  I already have six containers of both dill and alyssum at the moment, but I need to start growing many of the other flowers that I need to support my garden and plants.  I will hopefully start getting them planted indoors and placing them under lights this week.

Getting Seeds to Sprout is Much Easier with Coconut Pellets Hopefully

 Using coconut pellets is what I have started to use this year to get my seeds to start sprouting quickly and easily.  Hopefully this will get my plants off to a very good start and will be much healthier when I start placing them in the garden.  Although that is very from far now since it is still cold to place anything outside just yet I want to make sure that they start out right.  Hopefully these pellets will prove to be a worthwhile investment.

Previously I had planted some alyssum, dill, and wildflowers seeds into large plastic containers and they have been sprouting quite.  I would say this year they have all sprouted more successfully than any other that I had planted these same flowers.  I usually plant them in between rows to attract the insects that are needed in the garden.  These particular flowers end up bringing some of the best insects that any gardener could ask for.

 I also have spinach, kale, and some lettuce that are doing pretty well in the cool cellar that I keep them in until the weather temperatures are a little bit warmer.  Right now the weather is still too cold to start placing these plants outside, but it won't be long until I start hardening them out and preparing them to be placed in the garden.  For now I am going to be keeping them inside underneath some cheap fluorescent lights until time is right for outside growing.  

 I still have many more seeds to plant, but for now I have just started with some summer crop seeds for an early start.  I still have to plant pumpkins, zucchini, carrots, and many other flowers too.  I like to plant flowers early as well which include amaranthus, cosmos, statice, calendula, queen Anne's lace, and much more which are also used for insect attracting.

What Have I decided for the Springtime Crop for 2021?

 For the springtime I normally stick to cool weather crops because they happen to thrive better in the climate I live in.  The spring is also a good time to get my flowers ready which are great for attracting insects.  In a month or so I will start growing flowers and other vegetables that I will be planting for the summer, but for now I am just getting started with kale, spinach, and lettuce.

I have started with just sixteen pots and seedlings that will be under lights for about a month or so until the weather gets a little bit warmer and I can start placing them outside and benefit from the sunlight.  Since these are cool weather plants I can probably place them outside sooner because they thrive much better in cool temperatures and cooler climates.  At the moment it is still winter time and too cold for even spinach to survive outdoors.

 

while these seeds are being planted indoors this doesn't mean that this all my springtime plants that I will have growing in the garden.  I also will be planting potatoes, onions, peas, radishes, and possibly some sun king broccoli that can grow through the entire summer.  I haven't decided whether I will be growing broccoli or not, but it is something that I will be contemplating this month before I start tilling and planting seeds directly outdoors.

 

I also have not decided on a new plant or crop to start this season.  Normally I like to pick something new that I have not planted before each season.  This season I am not quite sure what would be very interesting to start growing for the first time.  I have thought about maybe planting some raspberries, but I am not sure if I have enough room for them.  I am hopefully looking forward to finally getting my grape plants into the ground after leaving them in large buckets for the past couple of years.

 

I will still be looking around for something new, but at the moment I don't have any ideas on what that new crop will be.   I still have plenty of time to decide, so I am not too worried that I won't find anything that catches my eye.