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.

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.

Peat Pots Made for Planting Melons, Peppers, and Eggplants

It is pretty common to place sensitive plants into peat pots because when it comes time to planting them outside they will not be harmed by you handling them.  I started planting some fruit and vegetables today that take some time to mature and harvest.  Melons take the longest followed by eggplants and then peppers.  All three were planted using these biodegradable containers.

Once I planted each of the seeds I then added them under some fluorescent lights that are used to start the germination process as soon as possible.  This year I am growing crimson sweet watermelon along with Carolina cross and Georgia rattlesnake.  This type is more round than oblong like most other watermelons tend to be.  As long as it has the same taste I don't mind what the shape of it is.

I am also growing a different cantaloupe as well.  I have been growing an heirloom melon throughout the past several years, but this season I wanted to grow something different.  This year I am growing a crenshaw cantaloupe which is supposed to be much larger than the ones I have been growing.

Flowers grown inside are just about ready to go outside once some warmer weather arrives.  I can place them outside during the day right now, but will probably bring them in during the night.  The night is still too cold to leave certain plants outside, but soon I will be planting my spring cool weather plants.

More of the Same Harvests With an Eggplant

For the most part I have been picking mostly tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, Roma tomatoes, peppers, beans, corn, and cucumbers.  I did pick most of them this morning and got another good harvest from them.  I did pick quite a large steakhouse tomato that was just about two pounds by itself.  It was just as large as my hand.

I also managed to pick the first eggplant for the season today.  I wasn’t going to pick it today, but it wasn’t growing anymore and it felt ripe to pick it.  A little bit small, but I can still find a meal to use it for and hopefully enjoy its unique taste.



I just wanted to let you in on the progress of my melons especially cantaloupes.  They should be ready real soon and will be the first melons to pick for the season.  My watermelons are doing well, but they take a little bit longer to ripe and produce the sugars they need inside the melon.  Since cantaloupes are smaller they will not need as much time to ripen.

Corn looks like it is done for now and I don’t think there are that many left to pick.  I was able to get about eight more last week and now most of them are done.  I will be removing the stalks from the ground and start using them as mulch or just chop them up and burn them.

More Vegetable Harvests will be Coming Very Soon

I will be very surprised if I don’t start harvesting my corn this coming week.  Most of the stalks have about one to two ears on them and a few of the earlier ones are actually close to picking.  I checked a couple of them today and they are still white which means they should be turning yellow very soon with some good sun in the next few days.

On the other hand some of my tomatoes are starting to turn as well.  Cherry tomatoes as you well know I have been picking for about a couple of weeks, but my other tomatoes I have not started yet.  That should soon change with a few of my regular tomatoes and sauce tomatoes are a light orange color at the moment.

I might also start picking some more zucchini in a week or so now that my plants are producing more of them for me to pick.  It took a little bit longer before they could produce a second batch, but at least they are starting to grow some more for another harvest of them.

Last, but not least my eggplants have started producing flowers and only one has a vegetable beginning to grow from it.  Eggplants take a while to mature and that is why I am not surprised that it took this long to produce a vegetable that I am looking forward to harvest in less than a month hopefully.

Melon, Pepper, Eggplant, and Cucumber Seed Planting

It is not time to start planting them outside, but it is time to give them the head start they need by starting them indoors.  I am using peat pots this time because it will just make things easier later on in the season when it is time to transplant all of them.  If they don't take I can always grow them directly in the soil.

I will place a fluorescent light on top of them once I fill the containers they are sitting in with water.  This is how I like to water my plants especially seeds because there is no need to use a spray bottle because the soil will soak up the water from the bottom up.













My plants are looking good especially my strawberry plants.  They have been soaking in water for about a week or so and I will be placing them in there own peat pots.  It is too early for them to go outside and I don't want them to just sit in a container of water for a month.  I will most likely put them into peat pots either this week or by the end of the weekend.

Alyssum, dill, and wildflowers have been sprouting and are just about done with the germination process except for dill which has just begun this process.  It was planted later so naturally it will be a little bit behind my alyssum and wildflower seeds.

Coming Down to the Last Harvests for This Season

I would say that the garden season of 2016 is coming to a close and it is almost time to start removing plants and cleaning up the garden.  I have started doing that with my beans, but that is all I have been doing in terms of cleaning up the garden.  I have removed one sunflower but that is about it. 

This coming week I will have to start digging up all my plants including sunflower and corn stalks along with tomatoes, zucchini, and other plants that need to be removed because they are no longer producing.  Even though we are at the end I did end up picking some tomatoes, eggplants, cantaloupe, and cucumbers.

How The Entire Garden is Progressing

I wanted to write a simple post about the production of my plants that I have in my garden.  Since most of them are growing fruit I thought it would be good to give an update on all my plants.  This would include corn that is starting to grow, clusters of Roma tomatoes, cantaloupes ready to harvest, and eggplants that have finally started to grow.

I was outside today and I wanted to pick most of my vegetables and fruits, but instead I just picked up many cherry tomatoes that had fell to the ground.  Yesterday it rained and with it lots of wind which knocked down and few plants and many cherry tomatoes.  I will go outside tomorrow and pick all the rest of the fruits and vegetables that are ripe.

I have eggplants that are beginning to grow this season and it will probably take them some time to grow to full size.  They usually mature late in the season as compared to other plants.  They are similar to melons and take quite a while to produce fruit, but when they do they get bigger each day.  I will document them from the beginning until I harvest them.

Next on the list is corn.  I wanted to let you know that the corn is going good and this goes for the stalks that have produced silks with ears of corn ready to mature.  So far I have a few that are growing well and I will be harvesting them soon as long as the weather cooperates.

Pole beans are doing good and are continuing to grow flowers which is a great sign of more beans to come.  Potassium is how you can get more flowers on your plants especially when it comes to beans.  They need this nutrient in order to get all the flowers possible and reach its maximum potential yield.

Pumpkins are done for the season and I could probably pick them now if I wanted to, but I will wait as long as possible and pick them as close to October as I can.  This is when I like to cut them open and take out the seeds and bake them in the oven.

I thought zucchini was done a month ago, but after I gave them some wood ash and manure they have started getting newer leaves and more vegetables.  They are not done yet and I think I will be getting many more as long as I keep feeding them what they need.

Time to Finish Transplanting This Week

I thought this week would be the perfect time to finish all my transplanting.  I completed a big chunk this week by adding the last of the tomatoes, some eggplant, peppers, and many different beneficial flowers.  Getting them into the ground was my first priority.

I had let my tomatoes grow long enough in the containers that they were held in and they seemed to not be looking good towards the end.  They were growing, but leaves were starting to curl and new leaves were not growing as fast as they should.  Once I noticed this I placed them in the garden and began transplanting them immediately.

In the photo below you can see how the roots had reached the bottom and could no longer continue to flourish.  This is when you know it is time to place them in the garden soil.

This is what they looked like after placing them in the garden.

They are already starting to look much better now that they have plenty of room to grow.

I also worked on my pepper plants too and they were not going anywhere while they stayed in their peat pots.  When they stop growing or halt their production they need more room to continue and that is exactly what I did with them.

Eggplants are usually last to be added to the garden because they take quite a while to grow in small containers, but once they start producing leaves they take off really fast.  Now that they are in the ground they will grow much faster.

Some flowers were also added including sunflowers this week.  I only added the transplants that I had and will plant some more sunflower seeds because I want to make sure that I have enough in order to attract as many bees as possible.

I added a large container full of cilantro into the ground.  I wasn't sure if it would come out easily, but in the end it actually came out like a large brick similar to what alyssum and dill do.

I love dill and planting as much as possible provides two advantages.  The flowers attract good insects and I can use the leaves for flavoring in many dishes.  There is nothing better than fresh organic dill.

The last flower I added was purple alyssum.  I was able to plant them in large green pots and still have some to plant in the garden.  I have about a couple of containers left after transplanting what I had ready for the garden.

Almost Time to Harvest Spinach Leaves

It has been about a week or so since I planted my spinach into the ground and most of them have been growing quite well especially with some of the rain and cool weather that we have been having.  The daytime temperatures have been a little warm, but at night it has been in the low 40's.  This is perfect for dark green spinach leaves.

I also had some more that needed to be placed into the ground and that is what I did yesterday afternoon.  I wanted to get the last of the spinach in the ground so that I can have two separate batches of spinach that I can pick at different times.  This means double the amount of spinach leaves because when one is picked the other one is continuing to grow and vice versa.

Check out the spinach I transplanted yesterday.

It is still somewhat small but in a couple of weeks it will look full and be ready for harvesting and then consumption.

I decided to grow some more flowers that will attract bees and other important insects because I believe you can never have enough flowers.  I try to plant as many flowers as possible every season and that is what I did yesterday as well.  Dill and alyssum were my first choices since they are easy to grow and I also threw in their some cilantro.

I also wanted to plants some more vegetables as well and I decided on peppers and eggplant.