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.