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.

A Good End to The Summer Garden Harvests

Eggplants this season was more prominent than any other summer or spring crop.  I had planted close to thirty eggplant plants and received at least one or more from each plant.  I picked some of the last eggplants a couple of weeks ago just before a frost ended the season for most of my plants.  Close to a dozen were picked in this last harvest
 

The frost ends the season for all my summer plants and starts the season for harvesting my fall crops that include broccoli and brussel sprouts.  Carrots will also be harvested during the fall season as well, but that will be a little bit later in the month. 

My last tomato plant that was still growing after most of them were done for the season has finally finished growing the most tomatoes that it could during the time that it had.  It grew some of the best beefsteak tomatoes this season and some of the best that I have ever grown.  This year I grew a different variety of tomatoes and still focused on beefsteak, but instead of a large type I decided to grow a basic type of tomato.

 

 Now on to my fall crop which I am very much looking forward to.  I have actually started harvesting both my broccoli and brussel sprouts.  I have only begun to harvest just the large heads of my broccoli plants, but soon I will be harvesting the side shoots that come after cutting off the head.  So far I have just cut a couple of large heads that were ready earlier than many of the others.  I would say that the next couple of weeks most of the heads will be removed from my broccoli plants.
 

I wasn’t sure if it was time to start picking my brussel sprouts, but the plant had stopped growing and most of the brussel sprouts looked like they were pretty much ready for consumption.  Instead of picking the whole plant I just started with about have of them and the rest I will get later in the fall season.

I Think My Eggplants and Pole Beans are Ready for the First Harvest

So far I have harvested mostly all types of my tomatoes I planted such as cherry, Roma, and beefsteak.  I have also been picking peppers as well.  Recently I have started with my pole beans which have been ready for quite some time.  I actually started picking sometime at the end of August and consistently through the month of September.  Melons were another fruit that I started picking from the garden and have eaten three cantaloupes and one honeydew melon.  The last and most recent vegetable that was ready for picking were my eggplants.

The first one I started picking a few weeks ago were my cantaloupes which had fallen of the vine and is a good indication that they are done and fully ripe for consumption.  They were definitely a decent size and all of them were ripe and very juicy.  I still have one left out in the garden which I am hoping will be ripe sometime this month.

I then worked my way to my pole beans which had plenty of beans and many flowers that were eventually going to turn in more beans for harvesting.  Most of my vines are producing plenty of beans and are still growing flowers even though the days are getting shorter each day.  I think I will have a few more harvests before the vines stop producing or at least slow down.  I have canned many of them and have frozen several beans and have used fresh ones for a few meals at the moment.

The last vegetable on the list that has yet to be picked are my eggplants.  I planted many of them this year as compared to other years and there many plants with multiple eggplants that are a good size which may take a little bit of time to go through all of them.  I am not worried because there are a few good recipes that you can use with them.  I have picked a total of five eggplants over the past couple of days and there are many where they came from.  I will probably start picking them on a weekly basis depending on weather conditions.
 

Time for Harvesting Many Spring Crops

It is that time of the year when spring crops are ready for harvesting which include radishes, lettuce, pea pods, broccoli, and soon to be harvested potatoes.  These are all cool weather crops but are best harvested when the weather gets just a little bit warmer.  You don’t want to pick them in very hot weather because they will most likely start to bolt and no longer be edible.  May to June is the perfect months to harvest these kinds of vegetables.

Let’s start off with lettuce which is usually the first plant to be harvested right next to radishes.  I have had just one harvest so far, but I know there is plenty more lettuce in the garden.  I like to space out harvests especially if I have many lettuce plants.  There is only so much I can store in the fridge and so much I can eat each day.  This way we have plenty of time to eat it without being overloaded with lettuce.
 

Radishes are also another springtime vegetable that is great to have through the cool weather months.  I grew about a half a row this season planting two different kinds of radishes.  One of them was supposed to be a traditional radish while the other was supposed to be much larger.  The key to radishes is to keep them covered with dirt and don’t forget to water them otherwise they will crack and possible rot in the ground.  I was able to get some good sized radishes from this harvest which I have been enjoying in many salads this year.

Last but not least comes my strawberries.  They had been growing this entire season and when they started producing many flowers I was excited to starting picking and enjoying them.  Since these are June bearing strawberries it is a good bet that they will fully ripen in the month of June.  This is the first good harvest I got from them since I started planting them years ago.  It takes a few years before you get a bountiful harvest from these plants

Running out of Time Planting Seeds into the Garden

It looks like time is starting to run out and I only have a couple of weeks to get all my plants and seeds into the ground.  Weather and other factors have prevented me from getting everything in on time and this can happen from time to time.  I will just have to work as fast as possible in order to get everything done before the month is over.

I do have my spring crops in the ground which I placed in the garden about a month ago and they are thriving with this cooler weather.  I am hoping to start picking the leaves off my lettuce real soon because they are growing really good.  Both my green and red plants are just about ready for harvesting which may be done by this week.

Even though I haven’t picked any lettuce leaves I did pick some of my strawberries that were ripe enough to eat.  I picked about four pounds worth of strawberries which is large for a first harvest of these berries.  I am hoping to get another harvest from these plants within the next week or so, then I can start focusing more on plants that need to be transplanted right away.

 Along with transplants there are some seeds that must be planted in the garden including beans, carrots, and corn.  I have planted my corn already and they have been sprouting and I have thinned them out this week.  Now I just need to till some more of the garden and get my beans into the ground before planting any other seeds.  My pole beans need a little bit more time to grow and produce beans and that is why I like planting them in May rather than June.

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

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.

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.

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.

Two More Watermelons Picked One Left to Go

There were three watermelons in the garden that were finishing up ripening in the past few weeks and it looked like it was time to pick them.  The biggest one in the garden I decided not to pick because the plant is still alive and has a few green leaves.  This is usually a sign that the watermelon is not ripe, but within a week or so it might be ready for harvesting.

The two that I decided to pick today came from a plant that had turned brown mainly due to the face of the cooler weather and it had exhausted all of its energy on the fruit it grew this season.  I usually like to wait until the stem is ready to come off or comes off on its own.  Today it happened to come off on its own on both of the watermelons and that is when I chose to harvest them.

Check out the watermelon below because this is the last one that I have to pick for this year.

First Watermelon Harvested for the Season

This week was a little exciting with the first watermelon picked.  Although I did pick the smallest of the four that are growing in the garden it still was a pretty decent size.  The other three are much larger and I am definitely looking forward to picking them sometime in the near future.

I also had some cantaloupes that were ready for picking and I picked two of them which only leaves one more left in the garden to harvest.  I had a good crop of cantaloupes this season even though they were medium sized they still were very delicious.

Got the last beans of the season this week as well.  They were done a little bit earlier than past years, but still picked enough to store for the winter months.  I also had another harvest of cherry tomatoes and some peppers that are still growing in the garden.

Harvest Time for Beans and Cucumbers

It is that time of the year where I will be picking more vegetables and fruits and harvesting will be a daily thing.  Right now harvesting is still slow, but within a week or so I am sure that I will have to start picking more vegetables in the garden

I have started with zucchini and now that my beans and cucumbers are ready I will now start picking them.  My cucumber plants have many vegetables on them and my beans while they take a little bit longer to produce beans they will bring a much better harvest.

Even though I have only picked one cucumber so far you can see in the picture below that my plants have many of them that I am waiting to ripen.  Once they get a little bit bigger I will be picking all of them that are ready for eating.

I picked just two pounds of beans yesterday.

Along with beans and cucumbers I even had some more zucchinis that were ready for harvesting as well.  As you know these plants will just continue to produce for the rest of the year as long as I give them exactly what they need.

Broccoli and Peppers Continuing to Grow While Beans are Done

Right now it seems like my pole beans are done for the season.  I did pick the last of what I could find on the vines this week.  Eleven pounds is what I got and is much more than I thought I would be able to pick from them.  They didn't look like there was much left, but I guess I underestimated the growth of my pole beans.  Hopefully I can have a good harvest of beans next year.  Check them out below.

Peppers were next on my list for harvesting and there were many peppers that needed harvesting right away.  Many of them were a real good size.  Most of them were perfect size and I can't wait to start using them in the next couple of weeks.  While I did pick nine of them there are probably the same amount or more still growing on the plants.  I would surmise that there are a few more harvests to come.

Broccoli will last for another couple months or so much longer than my peppers will.  I will rely on my broccoli to give me a good harvest in order to end the year on a good note.  I always like to end the year with a really good harvest.  Whether it would be my cabbage, broccoli, or even my carrots which I will pick just before Thanksgiving.  This year I decided on picking my broccoli to give me the best harvest of the fall season.  Right now the heads are growing on all my plants while the heads I have picked are beginning to see side shoots take over.