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.

What is Next Now That Lettuce and Spring Crops are Done?

Yup it is now time to switch to summer crop mode now that most of the spring crops are either going to seed or starting to turn brown which means no more production from them.  I still have to wait before digging up my potatoes which is one of the very last spring crops along with onions that have to be picked from the soil.

As for my onions they are still growing and getting bigger at the moment.  Some of them started to go to seed quite early so I had to make sure to remove the seed pod at the tip of them stem otherwise my onions would be very small when I pick them.  My yellow onions I will keep in the totes for now, but my red onions look like they are just about ready for harvesting.  At the moment most of the red onions have fallen which means they are done for the season.  Since my yellow onions have not fallen that means they are not quite ready for picking.  It won’t be long before they begin to fall.
 

Now that it is time for summer crops to produce it looks like my peppers, tomatoes, and zucchini are the first to be harvested during the month of July.  At the moment I have picked two zucchinis which have already been used to make some good meals and there are still more growing on the plants.
 

Pepper plants and tomato plants have flowers and some fruits.  Right now my peppers do not have fruits, but my tomato plants do.  I have at least a couple of plants that have flowers and fruits that will hopefully be ready by the month of July.  Usually it is usually a cherry tomato plant that is producing because they grow and ripen much quicker than beefsteak tomatoes.  Right now my beefsteak tomatoes are the ones that have tomatoes growing and plenty of flowers beginning to open.

 

I also have a couple of small cucumbers that are growing on a few vines that look like they have been pollinated.  One of them is getting bigger each day, but another one is too small to tell if it has been pollinated yet.  I am staying optimistic that they both have been pollinated and I should be getting the first cucumber of the season very soon

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

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.

Getting Plenty of Vegetables for Multiple Meals

The past couple of days has been good for harvesting and there was plenty of vegetables that I needed to harvest as soon as possible.  More and more tomatoes are getting ripe and turning to their respective color and my corn is coming to an end along with my regular cucumbers.  I would say that I have probably a half a dozen of corn left and only two plants of pickle cucumbers remaining.

The good news is that although it is halfway through the garden season I still have plenty of peppers, Roma tomatoes, steakhouse tomatoes, and cherry tomatoes left for more harvests.  Soon I will start using all the Roma tomatoes for making sauces and that will mark the beginning of the end of my Roma harvests.  They are almost ready for picking and I am sure by this week or next week I should be picking many of them.

For now I have been picking the vegetables that are ready and I will work on the others when it is their time for harvesting.  Let’s just look at a couple of harvests that I did this weekend such as corn, cherry tomatoes, and peppers.

I think this was the largest harvest for cherry tomatoes this season and I might be able to get an even larger harvest this week depending on how many are actually ripe.


Peppers and cucumbers were also ready for some harvesting and I wanted to pick all the ones that were ready so that these plants can continue producing flowers and vegetables.  Most of my pepper plants are spitting out flowers as fast as possible and my cucumber vines are also producing flowers and I hope to pick many more of them.

Ten pickle cucumbers were ready for harvesting.  Some of them look a little pale, but once you peel them they will still taste like a regular pickle cucumber.  These five peppers are about average size of this year pepper harvest and there are actually some on the plants that are much bigger that I can’t wait to pick.

How about Some Corn on the Cob?

Yes that is what I was able to enjoy yesterday with a decent harvest of some of my corn.  I like to cook all of them right away or at least the same day that I pick them and with that I got to have some corn to eat with my dinner.  They were quite large and delicious and I can’t wait to continue picking all the rest that are still out there.  I would guess that I have about a dozen or so left to harvest.


Beans are also flourishing and some more of them were picked as well.  I still have many growing on the vines which means I should be getting some more this month and hopefully through September as well.  As long as those buds and flowers keep coming I should have many more harvests.


A few peppers, cucumbers, and a couple of Romas were the harvest of today.  I even had one zucchini that was ready as well.  It is just the second round for my zucchini plants are there are a couple more out there that are not ready, but I should be picking them soon.

How About Some of Those Large Tomatoes?

Yes, I have some large steakhouse tomatoes that look so good and I want to pick them very soon.  Luckily today I was able to pick the first steakhouse tomato on one of my plants and was definitely a good size.  It weighed just short of two pounds and was able to fit in my entire hand.

Besides tomatoes I had some more beans to pick today.  I knew I was going to pick them before the week was over and that is what I did this morning.  I got much more than my previous harvests and I am not sure, but I think this will be one of the largest harvests of beans this season.

Peppers, cucumbers, and pickles were also on the list for harvesting.  I had a large cucumber that I was hoping to pick soon because it was a very large size that I didn’t want to see get too big otherwise it may not taste right.  I picked it today along with two peppers and two pickle cucumbers.

Start Picking Those Peppers Right Away

Today was the first harvest of my peppers for this year.  I have about six plants and only two were picked this afternoon.  I didn't want to pick too many especially if they weren't ready or they could get much bigger than what they are right now.  All of my plants have peppers and soon I will start picking much more of them once they reach a good size.











Along with peppers I had some cherry tomatoes, pickle cucumbers, and some beans ready as well.  I was hoping to push my beans to this weekend, but they needed to be harvested today before they get too big with large beans within their pods.







Here are my cherry tomatoes and pickle cucumbers that came along with this harvest.  Just a small, but good harvest today and plan to have many more of them real soon.

Another Day Full of a Few New Harvests

I just decided to finally start picking my cherry tomatoes and some pole beans.  I was planning on picking them sometime this weekend and that is exactly what I did today.  There were also a few cucumbers that were also ready which makes for three simple harvests today.

There were just a few cherry tomatoes that were ready for picking, but there are many more that will hopefully start turning real soon to make even larger harvests.  I usually like to fill large bowls filled with cherry tomatoes.  I am actually waiting on my regular and Roma tomatoes to turn because those are the tomatoes I like to use the most.

My beans this season were quite large and I would say that they were just shy of a foot long.  This goes for all the ones that I picked today.  Looking through the vines I saw that there were many more to pick and they were about the same size, but were just not ready to pick yet.





Just wanted to mention the four cucumbers that I picked today as well.  Two were pickle cucumbers and the other two were just normal cucumbers.  I wasn't planning on picking a couple of them, but they were a decent size and I didn't want them to grow on the vine for too long.

Start Getting Ready for Many Harvests in the Garden

It is that time when harvests of many fruits and vegetables will be coming.  For now I have started with zucchini, cucumbers, a couple of pickle cucumbers, and blueberries.  I have been looking through the garden and it looks like I have some beans to be picked very soon.  I could start picking them today, but instead I picked a couple of cucumbers that needed to be harvested right away.

 You can see from the picture that my pole beans are growing, but they are just not quite ready for picking.  There are a few early birds that are ready and I might pick those this weekend, but the majority will most likely be ready in a week or so.

It looks like tomato picking is on the horizon as well with a couple of my cherry tomatoes beginning to ripen.  It doesn’t take long for these types of tomatoes to start ripening since they are a much smaller size than the others that I am growing.  That is why they are the first to be picked which shouldn’t be that long from now.

I think I have a cantaloupe that has been pollinated recently.  One of the vines has many fruits, but there is only one that looks like it has been getting bigger once the flower fell off.  It could be the first melon of the season depending if it continues to grow or not.