It is Almost the end of a Season for 2019 Until Fall Crops are Ready for Harvesting

At the moment fall crops are not quite ready for harvesting, but I would say in the next couple of weeks the first broccoli heads or the first kale leaves will be ready for consumption.  I also have a brussel sprout plant that is just about ready for harvesting which I may do either this weekend or sometime next week.

Now that my fall crops have been growing quite well I also am still harvesting various vegetables that I grew this summer.  Tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, and some beans are what is left of the summer harvest right now.  

My beans are probably done for the year and they have not been producing any more flowers.  There might be some that are hidden within the leaves, but I think it is safe to say that they have given their all. 

My tomatoes are also going the way of my beans and are done with producing new flowers for new fruits that can be harvest.  Luckily there is one beefsteak tomato plant that doesn’t want to give up and is still growing tomatoes.  As for flowers I think it is done, but the plant still has fruit on it that I will be harvesting sometime this month and hopefully before a frost.

 Peppers are another vegetable that I am still harvesting through the month of October.  These plants grew quite well this season and I have probably picked several dozen throughout the year using them for various things including a couple of batches of homemade tomato sauce.    There are still a few on these plants that I will be picking this week, but once I pick these last ones that will most likely be it for them.

 Last but not least are my eggplants that have grown the best out of most of my garden plants.  This could be due to the fact that I grew over 20 eggplants in the garden.  It was just a numbers game that I will have many eggplants to pick.  I have been picking them on a regular basis and I still have plenty out in the garden to harvest.  I would say that this is the largest harvest of eggplants I have ever received.

More Tomatoes are the Subject for Today

It seems that all I have been talking about is my tomatoes.  Fortunately I have been getting plenty of them this season especially when it comes to cherry tomatoes.  300 cherry tomatoes were picked last week while today I beat that by getting 490 ripe cherry tomatoes.  It looks like more salsa will have to be made with these types of tomatoes.

On the other hand I picked plenty of Roma and steakhouse tomatoes this past week as well.  I had over forty pounds of Roma tomatoes that needed to be used otherwise they would become rotten and not good for anything.  Luckily I made plenty of sauce with them and was able to fill up plenty of glass jars with this sauce.  I will be using most of it over the winter as well as the salsa from the cherry tomatoes.

I also had picked many steakhouse tomatoes which are basically good for sandwiches.  I love BLT and have been slicing large pieces of tomato for my lunch.  Having a large slice of fresh tomato on your sandwiches is one of the best things of the summertime.  It is one of the many things I look forward to each year.

Now that I have discussed my tomatoes it is time to talk about other vegetables in my garden.  First of all I picked some more pole beans today and will probably be freezing some of them for use in a couple of months.  I only picked a small batch, but there is still plenty of time with plenty of more beans to be picked real soon.

My melons are doing well and I don’t know exactly when, but some of them are going to be harvested sometime this month hopefully.  My watermelon will most likely be the first since it was planted first and the first to generate a melon.  I have a couple of cantaloupes and a couple of honeydew melons that are still on the vine not ready for picking.

Ending the Garden Season on a High Note

Although it is not the end of the season and I would say that it will not end until the real cold weather arrives I wanted to get a good last harvest from my Roma tomatoes.  I had plenty of them on the plants that I was just waiting for them to ripen fully.  Today I think I picked the most I have ever in just one day.

It just happened that many of them were ripe on the same day.  Since most of them grew at the same time it makes sense that they would also ripen at a similar time.  I did leave some of them on the plant because they were just not quite ready and some of them still had green tomatoes on them as well.

Only a couple were continuing to produce tomatoes, but for the most part production of tomatoes is pretty much over for all the types of tomatoes that I grew this season.  The rest of them will be picked at a later date sometime in the near future.  There was 70 pounds worth of Roma tomatoes which will be turned into thick red sauce.

On a side not some cantaloupes were picked this week.  This makes two types of fruits that were picked this week.  This is usually the time when I start to pick my melons and watermelons are always last to be harvested.  Just four more cantaloupes to enjoy for as long as possible until other melons are ready to be picked.









 I also have one honeydew plant which is the only one to survive during the cooler month of May and it has one fruit on it that is hopefully going to ripen this season.  I hope that it ripens soon before the cool weather harms the vine and it won’t be able to fully ripen.  It has finished growing so right now it is working on the ripening phase of the fruit.

Picking Enough Roma Tomatoes for More Home Made Sauce

Today I had plenty of tomatoes to be picked.  This doesn't mean just Roma tomatoes which will be used for making sauce, but I also had many cherry tomatoes and steakhouse tomatoes that were ready for harvesting.  One cherry tomato plant is done for the season and was no longer producing any more leaves or even flowers.  I only have three more left which should provide me enough to last at least a month hopefully.

Here are my steakhouse tomatoes which are best used for slicing and placing on sandwiches or just eating as is.  This is probably the biggest harvest of these types of tomatoes this season.  They are quite a good size and still good enough for slicing.







Some more pole beans were harvested this afternoon and this will probably be the last post about these beans for the season.  They lasted not as long as usual, but I still got enough out of them to be proud of.  I didn't want to forget mentioning a couple more peppers were finished ripening on the plant.

Cherry Tomatoes are Now Ready for Harvesting

I just took a look at my tomato plants today and saw that many of them are growing good and have good looking tomatoes.  What interested me the most was my cherry tomato plants.  They had some that were perfectly red and ready to be eaten.  I had taken a few here and there that were ready about a week ago, but there wasn't enough for a harvest.  I also wanted to make sure that they tasted right.

Not any of my other tomatoes are ready for picking, but this always happens every year.  My cherry tomatoes start first and then a little bit more time passes and then I will start picking either my steakhouse tomatoes or my Roma super sauce tomatoes.  It depends on how much sun each plant gets and how long it has been growing.  Right now I think the next tomato will be one of my steakhouse tomatoes.  Those are perfect for sandwiches.

I picked 47 cherry tomatoes and this is just a first harvest.  I can't imagine how many more I will pick between the four plants that I have growing these amazing tomatoes.

I also had some beans that were ready for picking as well.  Not many beans this time, but I think once my vines get some flowers growing I will have another good harvest like I had previously.  This is just a third harvest of many more to come hopefully.