The Harvests I missed During a Week Long Rain Storm

There were many harvests I wanted to do this week, but couldn’t because of the rain storm that lasted several days.  That is why I wrote a post today to make certain that you are up to date with the latest harvests I did this afternoon.

My pumpkins were finally ready this week and I should have picked them much earlier in the week.  They have been ready for quite awhile and I just like leaving them outside in order to have them turn orange quicker.  A couple have become rotten and I had to cut them up and throw them into some compost that I will be making.  Other than that they were pretty good for being outside through this storm for this long.

Beans are another harvest that I got done today.  I actually wasn’t sure if many of them were going to be ready for picking, but when I went outside and looked at my vines I saw plenty of them that needed to be harvested right away.  Today’s harvest was quite big and I got over nine pounds of these sweet and delicious beans.

The last on today’s list are my peppers that are just still producing flowers despite the weather and are growing amazingly.  They have really good peppers on the plants I got about a dozen of them that were ready waiting to be picked.  Most of them were large sized peppers, but there were a couple that were a little bit smaller.  Nevertheless as long as they taste good I am not worried about their size.

Now Some Cucumbers can be Harvested Today

I have left my cucumbers on the vines for plenty of days and it is now time to remove them from the vine and enjoy their amazing and sweet taste.  I wanted to pick them earlier, but I ended up harvesting them today instead. 

I also decided to start picking all kinds of zucchinis that were growing in the garden.  I was only going to pick one or two, but I saw that many of them were hard enough that they needed to be removed from the plant today.  I collected only four average to large sized zucchinis.  I still have plenty out there and will continue picking them as long as the plants provide them.

Just a quick side note on my squash plants that include my pumpkins, I have found about three pumpkins that are pollinated and have started getting bigger each day.  As long as I keep feeding them and don’t let them get dry they should continue getting bigger. 

What Plants Are Next for Transplanting?

It looks like this weekend has been quite productive with adding three types of plants into the garden.  This doesn't sound like much, but with over twenty tomato plants, twelve squash plants, and a dozen melon plants it makes for a long weekend.  Today I was able to finish the melons and squash transplanting.

A couple of days ago when I had finished tilling I wanted to get as many tomato plants into the ground as possible.  Since I had many tomato plants to add to the garden I wanted to get the hardest plants over with.  It only took about four hours to plant all my tomato plants into the ground.

My melons had been in peat pots for quite a long time and they probably wouldn't have last that much longer in these containers.  That is when I decided to plant them right after my tomatoes.  This includes all my
melons such as watermelon, cantaloupe, and honeydew.

Right after doing my melon plants squash plants were next.  The two squash plants that I grew this season were pumpkins and zucchini.  These are the only two squash plants worth growing.

Cutting Up Pumpkins for Halloween

The best time to start cutting pumpkins that were picked from the summer or fall is the day before Halloween.  That is what I did this year because I love removing the seeds and then baking them in the oven.  They make for a good snack and are very filling especially if you have quite a few of them.  I did cut up four of my pumpkins that I thought needed to be used very soon.  I don't like to see pumpkins go bad so I usually pick the ones that I think must be cut right away.

 Here is the inside of one of the pumpkins that I cut this past weekend.  It only took about an hour or a little bit more to remove all the seeds and insides of the pumpkins.  They were not too big so this made the job much easier.

I had quite a few seeds just from four pumpkins.  I wasn't able to eat all of them and I still have three more pumpkins that need to be cut.  These will come much later and probably only one at a time.  This will mean less seeds to eat all at once depending if I can make these pumpkins last as long as possible.

Time for Picking Kale and the Last Pumpkins

I started picking my kale plants today because they had very large leaves that were not going to get any bigger and had to cut them off the plant right away.  I could have waited a couple more days, but I like to pick a little bit at a time rather than several leaves all at once.  I got 37 leaves in total that came from eight plants that I have growing in the garden.

The good news is that there are still plenty of leaves on the plants and the leaves that I picked today were a real good size.  If I can have harvests like this for the rest of the season I will be happy.








Pumpkins were another vegetable that I picked today.  I wasn't going to at first, but then I thought that this is the month of October and this is the best time to pick them.  Instead of just picking a couple I decided to just pick all of them.  I will only cut a couple of them to use on Halloween and the others I will wait just before they begin to rot and then cut them open.

One of my vegetable plants that are still producing flowers would be my peppers.  I saw that my plants had plenty of peppers on them and I picked as many that were ready.  It is great that they are still producing flowers this late into the season.  Once the first frost comes then that will be the end for most of the garden.

Taking a Look at Some of My Progressing Fruits and Vegetables

This whole week has been busy in the garden especially with everything that is starting to produce flowers, fruit, and vegetables.  Right now it looks like my first zucchini of the year is going to be done within a week or so with good weather.  It has been growing every single day and it is definitely very noticeable to the naked eye that it is continuing to grow.  Once it stops growing or getting bigger that is how I know it is done.

All my tomatoes are growing and I have at least one of each type that has tomatoes.  This would include at least one steakhouse, one Roma, and one cherry tomato.  My cherry tomato plants at the moment actually have just flowers, but I am sure very soon this week I should have at least one growing on one of these plants.  Check out my steakhouse and Roma below.

One of my cucumber plants is already producing cucumbers, but at the moment none of them have been pollinated so far.  Luckily many of my other plants are starting to produce flowers as well and I think that my plants will have a better chance at pollination once most of my cucumbers are producing flowers.

Here is just one of those female flowers that have opened.  I am not sure if it received the pollen that was needed, but I should find out soon if it did or not.  This could possibly be the first cucumber of the season.








I did not mention my pumpkins in the previous post because they were not doing anything at the time.  Yesterday I noticed that a pumpkin had been growing on one of the vines for the past couple of days at least.  I didn't notice it earlier and it actually had an opened flower.  It was a sunny day and that is good because usually there are more of them during sunny mornings.  So there is a possibility that it had been pollinated, but I am not sure.

Getting Some of My Onion Bulbs Planted in Totes

I like using totes for my onions and I also do use the ground for them as well since it worked out last season I wanted to do it again to make sure it works.  I have not placed them in the ground yet and I hope to finish that tomorrow with weather permitting. 

I have already placed them in totes this past weekend and since it usually doesn't take that long I took just one hour to get that completed.  It will take a little bit longer to plant them in the garden which is why I was waiting for a good day to do so.

I also needed to get my squash plants ready indoors as well.  This is around the time when I get them started now that most of my plants have filled the windowsill.  I can place both zucchini and pumpkin seeds under flourescent lights for a quick sprouting.  I do still have some tomatoes that are under lights, but for the most part many of them are getting light from the sun.

I will soon be placing my flowers outside along with lettuce that is being hardened off right now.  They have been outside the past week and I want them to get ready for the weather outside before transplanting them.  I probably will be planting lettuce by the end of the month if possible.

I am also growing some basil and parsley this season for something extra.  I don't usually grow herbs except for dill and cilantro, but this season I wanted to add some to the garden because when I grew parsley last season as a test they were able to last quite awhile and I collected quite a bit of it over the season.  Since parsley worked in 2015 this year I am adding basil to the list.

Today the Focus is on My Pumpkin Harvest

Yes that is right I ended up picking my pumpkins a little bit earlier than usual.  I love picking them in the month of October because this is when I tend to use them the most between the fall weather and Halloween.  Carving up pumpkins is one of the best things about growing these vegetables, but my favorite part of pumpkins are the seeds. 

I clean off the seeds and place them on a pan with some spices and vegetable oil and bake them in the oven.  They are very delicious and I am looking forward to cutting them for this reason.  Just two of the pumpkins that were picked today need to be cut very soon because they were starting to decay by being outside.  If I got any more rain I am sure the decay would have progressed very fast.  Thankfully no rain came recently.

Another vegetable that I would like to talk about today are my eggplants.  Three eggplants were harvested today and I have only a couple of eggplants left.  I still have quite a few plants, but in terms of fruit there are about three that are still growing.  The weather is definitely getting too cool for them so I am not looking to getting any more of them this season except for the three that are out there right now.

The bad news is that today I also picked the very last cucumber for this season.  I didn't think my cucumber plants would have ended this soon, but with the cooler weather and less sun time I guess it was their time.  I got plenty of cucumbers this season and with all the relish I made I think this will last through the Winter months until next year's harvest.

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 for More Harvesting and Beginning to Plant a Fall Crop

This year I decided to grow another fall crop and I wasn't sure exactly what I was going to be planting besides broccoli and cabbage.  I was hoping to get some kale seeds, but unfortunately I was unable to obtain them and now I am going to just be focusing on broccoli and cabbage.  Since I have one less plant to worry about I decided on planting exactly ten seeds of cabbage and ten of broccoli.

This does not mean that I only placed one seed into each of the ten containers, but I am using ten containers for each of my fall plants.  I probably placed about four or five seeds into each container making certain that at least one of those seeds will germinate in each cup.  I used a mixture of topsoil and some worm compost that I have been saving to use for this time of the season.  I love using this mixture because it produces vibrant and healthy plants that can last quite awhile in these containers.

They will be staying outside for the rest of the season instead of growing them inside.  It is better for them to be outside in order to adjust to the temperatures immediately and won't have to worry about hardening them off.  They also will get much more sun by being outside as well which is the main reason why I keep them out there.

I have also been harvesting today even though I was planting my fall crop.  For now zucchinis are the most popular in the garden and they are growing really fast.  I started feeding the plants today because a few of them needed to be replenished with nutrients that they require in order to continue producing vegetables that I can pick later on.  This also helps them produce flowers which are much more important in the long run.

I have pumpkins growing on the vines as well which I am looking forward to picking which will not come at any time soon.

Four is the count right now and I think there might be another one somewhere in there which I will have to look for tomorrow.

Cucumbers are also on the rise today and I saw the first one of the season fully pollinated.

It's not quite ready and probably another week or so it should be approaching the point where I can begin harvesting it.  Only time will tell.

Harvesting the First Vegetables May be Just Around the Corner

So far the only thing that I have been harvesting is mainly leaf plants including spinach and lettuce.  Now that spinach is over and lettuce season coming to close it is almost time to start harvesting vegetables that are beginning to grow in the garden.  The first of the season would most likely be zucchini.

My zucchini plants are growing quite well and at least most of them or even all of them are producing vegetables at a very fast speed.  They started flowering about a week or so ago and are now producing very large zucchinis and it will not be long before I start harvesting them.

This is just one and there are many that are this size or even bigger.  I would say by this week I will be harvesting zucchini.  This will be the non leaf vegetable to be harvested this season.

My pumpkins are even growing good and the vines are just spreading out like crazy.  I acutally found a pumpkin that looks like it has been pollinated very recently.  I would say less than a week ago it flowered and was pollinated by the bees.  I never thought I would get a pumpkin this early, but I am not going to complain because the earlier they come the more time they have to grow that pumpkin.

This is the first pumpkin so far and there are more that have begun flowering, but I will not now if they were pollinated until another few days to a week at the most.  Once it starts getting bigger then that means it was pollinated and will start getting bigger each day.

Cucumbers are another vegetable starting to grow and flower.  I found the first fruit starting to flower yesterday that means cucumbers will be visible very soon.  There are only a couple of plants flowering, but I have only seen one fruit actually opening.

My tomato plants are growing flowers too and I am hoping that some of them will start ripening very soon.  The goal is to start picking them by mid July at the latest.  I don't think any of them will be ready by the fourth of July, but they are usually not ready by then normally.  Here is a large Roma tomato that may be the first tomato harvested this season.

Started Transplanting All My Plants This Week

With the good weather over the past month it was time to start putting them into the ground right away.  The quicker they are placed in the ground the faster they will provide a good harvest hopefully.  This is why I decided to place them in the garden.  I still have not finished with the garden, but I should be complete by next week.

I am aiming for next week because I still have have plants to add to the garden including eggplant, peppers, along with planting corn, beans, and carrots.  There is still plenty to do and I am not sure if I can get this done by the weekend.  That is the earliest that I can get this done and even with good weather I might not get it done that quickly.

So far I have got a couple of alyssum plants in the ground along with squash, cucumbers, and melons.  This includes both watermelon and cantaloupe as well as zucchini and pumpkin squash plants.  I even had time to put some pot bound tomatoes into the ground too.

Here is a cucumber plant added to the garden this week.

Here is a pumpkin and zucchini added to the garden as well.