What to do with Broccoli in the Summer?

That is what I did this past week is pick a single broccoli head.  I wasn’t sure if broccoli was going to last this long since it is made for the cooler fall months.  Although I grow a hybrid which is made for warmer temperatures and I want to see how far I can push it before it starts to flower and no longer produces large pieces of broccoli. 



I picked another two pounds of peas this evening and this will make it only the second harvest of peas for the season.  Flowers are starting to dwindle and it looks like it might be the end for them this year, but with the right nutrients they can continue growing with even more flowers hopefully. 



Strawberries are definitely done for the season and all that is left is dealing with the runners that come from all the plants.  If you don’t control them they can go wild and start planting new plants in all directions.  I will take some of them and put one in between all the plants that I have right now.  This should increase the amount of strawberry plants from 30 to 50 or more.

Blueberries are not that far behind and it should be harvesting time in the month of July.  I usually start picking them at the end of June, but it looks like this year that is not going to happen.  They are beginning to turn, but they still have some time before they are blue enough for picking and eating.

I wouldn’t mind starting to pick my lettuce this week.  Some of the plants are not ready, but my king crimson red lettuce is about time for them to be picked.  I don’t like picking plants all at once and instead pick leaves here and there.  I find I can get more out of a plant if I leave them in the ground and only pick leaves when they continue producing them.

A Look at My Garden Progress and First Pea Harvest

I just wanted to get you up to speed with what has been going on in the garden for this season.   I actually picked the first harvest of strawberries last week and had another harvest a couple of days ago.  It looks like only two harvests will come from these plants, but I will be adding many more plants this year for more berries next season.

Today was a good day because I had a second harvest from my pea plants.  This was just the first harvest from my pea plants and it was a small, but successful one.  Although there were not many that were ready for harvesting there still was enough to get a small yield.  I would say that this will last just one meal.  There are plenty of more peas on the plants which I plan on picking in the coming days.



Blueberries are looking good and I can’t wait to start picking them which happens at the end of this month.  July is when I get the bulk of these berries, but getting a little early would definitely be small taste of what is to come hopefully.



If I were to take a guess I would say that the next harvest will come from my lettuce plants.  Many of them are ready for picking and cutting, but I have held off for the moment.  My king crimson red lettuce is the best out of all of them for the moment.  I do have green lettuce that looks good as well and even a broccoli plant that is producing a head.  I would say real soon I will be cutting many of the leaves from my lettuce plants.



I also just wanted to mention my tomatoes have flowers on them and should be seeing tomatoes coming from them real soon.  I have staked them and all I need to do is tie my plants to the stakes to prevent them from falling over.  I will have to do this sometime this week at the latest or at least before tomatoes start to come through.

Almost Done with All the Transplants in the Garden

I am just about finished with all the transplants that I will be adding to the garden.  All I have left is some dill, wildflowers, statice, alyssum, and various other flowers that I need to get outside real soon.  With vegetables and fruits finally planted from seed or transplanted into the garden from containers, I can now focus on weeding and caring for my plants.  I am just looking for the first harvest from my garden this season.

It looks like some of the first harvests of the season will come from either my lettuce plants or some other spring crop.  Radishes don’t take long to mature and they were planted in the ground a couple of months ago along with my pea plants.  These are just some of the harvests I have to look forward to this year.



The only flowers I transplanted into the garden this week were my cilantro and cosmos flowers.  These plants I started growing back in April and took quite awhile for them to germinate and grow in the containers that I provided them.  They survived this whole time and it was way overdue to plant them in the ground.  It seems like they all took to the soil and with the rain today should definitely help them out greatly.



Rhubarb was another plant that had been grown in pots and was eventually destined to be added into the garden.  I gave them a spot with plenty of room since they have very large roots and need plenty of feeding.  I don’t plan on harvesting any of the stems this season, but hopefully with some good care this year and a cold winter I should have a small harvest next season. 



Last but not least I wanted to mention some of the seeds that were planted and which ones have shown signs of germinating.  Squash was the first since they don’t take long to germinate.  This includes both zucchini and pumpkin plants.  Some cucumbers were in the mix beginning to sprout.  Sunflowers were the other seeds that are starting to grow in the garden.  All that I am waiting for are carrots and a couple of melon seeds that I added a week ago.

More seeds and Transplants Placed Into the Garden

I have finished my vegetable and fruit transplants except for a couple of lettuce plants and my rhubarb that I plan on placing in the garden real soon.  Weather and temperatures are getting warmer and it was time to get my eggplant, melons, and pepper transplants into the ground.

I placed them in the ground today because they were starting to grow right through the peat pots and some of the leaves were beginning to turn a light yellow.  I like to place them in the ground with all the leaves green or at least most of them.

Beans have also been planted recently and they have already began to sprout.  I have already set up the trellis that I use every season and the way they are growing I will have to place the ropes on the trellis very soon.



My strawberry plants are growing well and some of them are already getting runners.  Most of the plants are also producing flowers and some even are getting berries.  It won’t be long before they get bigger and start to turn red for a June harvest.



Blueberries are also on the way to ripening now that I have placed a net over them I can now wait for them to ripen in the sun.  They are still small at the moment, but I think they might be ready at the same time as my strawberries possibly.  I would say in a month the first harvest of blueberries will be ready.



Last but not least my tomatoes were definitely ready to be placed in the ground.  They were getting pot bound in the containers I placed them in so I put them in the ground this past week.  I will have to place stakes around them real soon.  I like to place stakes around them when I first put them in the ground so that I don’t damage the roots.  I think a few days after will not hurt them.

Lots of Transplanting and Lots of Seed Planting

This week was a week full of seed planting and transplanting of many plants and seeds.  I began with obviously seeds that were made for cooler and spring type weather such as broccoli, spinach, and lettuce.  I wanted to get as many seeds into the ground as possible before the warm and hotter weather arrives which should come in a couple of months or so.  Two full rows of seeds should provide a good amount vegetables if they all sprout.

Transplanting both flowers, broccoli, and brussel sprouts I had to finish today.  I started with my flowers since they are much easier to transplant into the ground.  I placed them in between the two rows above and between the two rows of corn that I planted a couple of days ago.

Above is just some dill that I have planted into the garden and I also put both alyssum and wildflowers into the garden as well.  Some of them between corn rows and some between my spring crop rows.

Although it is still spring it was time to get as many corn seeds into the garden as possible.  Two full rows will provide enough corn that I need to enjoy when they start producing some time July and into August weather permitting. 

Thinning out plants is an important part of gardening and that is what I did with my radishes and my pea plants that I had planted back in April.  They were starting to crowd each other and that will cause some issues in the future if you do not remove all the plants but one in a bunch.  I plant the seeds in bunches and if they all sprout they will crowd up all around each other and that is when you start thinning them out.

The last thing I did today was getting all of my transplanted broccoli and brussel sprouts into the garden right next to my spring crop.  I wasn't sure if I was going to plant them today, but I decided that getting them into the garden as soon as possible was the best possible way to get them out of the way.  This way I don't have to think about them later on and is one less plant that I need to transplant into the garden.

So far this is all I have done in the past week and hope to get some more plants into the garden with the next couple of weeks or so.  I will probably start planting some of my squash seeds indoors including pumpkins and zucchini.  I also have some flowers that need to get outside in the near future once they get a little bit bigger.  I have been placing my tomatoes, melons, eggplant, and peppers outside to harden them off in order to get used to the weather.  It was a little cool today so I left them inside for the moment and hope to put them back outside this week again.