Removed Onions from Soil and Letting them Dry

One of the first things that you need to do with onions is to make sure that they are completely dry before you bring them inside.  They are very susceptible to fungus and mold and if they are wet they can easily spread it to each other rather quickly.  I actually just pull them out of the soil and sit them on top or sometimes on a table.  If they are on a table they should be able to dry much quicker in my opinion.

Here in this picture you can see that I left them in the totes on top of the soil to let them dry in the hot sun.

The photo above shows onions that I placed on a table to let them dry quicker hopefully.

Tomatoes harvested and they include all three types: Roma, cherry, and steakhouse.

I picked five pounds of beans in two days from both rows.  I still have plenty of beans on the vines, but they were not ready and I should have another harvest by the weekend.

There were also four cucumbers ready and I scooped them up as well.

Checked Out First Pepper and Many More Cucumbers on the Way

I had a pepper growing on one of the plants that looked like it had reached its potential size and I decided on picking it today.  I could have left it on the plant and it probably would have been fine and maybe it would have grown to even a bigger size.  I will never know how big it could have became.  Right now it is a good size and it is perfect for use in meals, salads, or even salsas.

About the size of a baseball and that is definitely a good size for any home or organic garden.  Obviously if they were any bigger I wouldn't complain, but as long as these peppers taste sweet that is all that I am looking forward to testing.  Non sweet peppers would just be a big disappointment, but definitely fixable for the other peppers to come.

Just a small pepper flower that signals that many more are to come.

Many cucumbers are on the way as well when I looked through my plants I saw that there were quite a few vegetables growing on the vines.  Sometimes you have to look real good because many times the leaves can easily cover them and you might miss some that were ready.  Today was one of those days and luckily I happened to see it not too late. 

It was only one cucumber but it was still a large sized one that I didn't want to get any bigger because it could have a bad taste if it gets too big.  When I cut it from the vine it had a very sweet smell so that is a very good sign.  Only time will tell how good this cucumber tastes.

With that said I want to show you some others that will be ready in the near future.

I actually have many more, but these are a few that I wanted to show you that should be ready by the end of the week or sooner.

Picking Pole Beans and Pulling Up Onions Coming Soon

From what I can tell from looking through the garden is that the next vegetable that I will be picking for the 2015 season is pole beans and then onions.  I have some peppers that are also just about ready for harvesting, but in this post I am going to focus on onions and pole beans.

Pole beans are one of the most time consuming of vegetables to pick, but is definitely worth the time to pick them all or at leas most of them.  They grow quite fast and once they start to produce their vines the flowers are quickly produced and the beans will get very large quickly.  It only takes them about a week to get to full size once they have been pollinated.  You can see from the photos below how big they are capable of getting.

I leave them on the vine in order to get them as big as possible before they beans start to dry out and become not good for eating.  I will probably do a small harvest to pick up all the ones that are ready and will not get any bigger. 

Also watching for flowers is another good sign that I will be getting more beans in the season.  Pole beans or any type of bean including bush types need potassium for flower growth and I made sure that I supplied them with kelp meal which is a perfect fertilizer for these plants.  Hopefully they will continue to produce flowers and beans all season long.

Onions are also on the verge of harvesting and I think that they will be ready this weekend.  Most of the stems have fallen over and I have not been watering them since the beginning of this week.  Drying them out allows the onions to dry and makes them much easier to store without worrying about mold or other fungus growing on them in storage.

You can see that they are no longer standing up on their own and this is due mainly to the weather and hot temperatures that we have been receiving.  Once the warm or hot temperatures arrive they are pretty much done for the season.

It is Time for Ripening Fruits Such as Tomatoes

Tomatoes and melons are the focus of this blog post and only a couple of tomatoes are starting to turn red while my melons are just getting bigger each day.  This is all you can really do for melons is watch them get bigger and bigger.  I am also giving them more fertilizer because many of the plants are producing many cantaloupes that are sucking up nutrients to feed these melons.

The two melons above are small to medium sized cantaloupes that are hopefully going to get much larger before I have to harvest them.  So far their size is increasing with each passing day and at this point this is when they are heavy feeders to create a big enough melon.  I like large melons and I am doing everything I can to get them as large as possible.  Below is the watermelon that is growing as well.

Now at the moment my melons are not even close to harvest time, but one fruit is close and that would be my tomatoes.  Only a couple of tomatoes have begun ripening and one of them is a Roma tomato and some cherry tomatoes have started as well.  In a couple of weeks with good weather I should see them bright red or pink and ready for picking.  I love fresh tomatoes and there is nothing better than this when growing an organic garden.

Here you can tell that it is an orange color and it only started turning just yesterday.  In just two days this is how far it has gone with the ripening process.  As you can see it doesn't take that long at all.  With sunny days it will ripen even faster so hopefully the weather will hold up and the sun will get these fruits pink to red in color.

Melon Plants Starting to Produce Fruit

One of the most important things that I check in my garden is if my vine plants are producing fruit or at least flowers that will lead to having fruit.  For example I noticed that some of my melons are producing flowers, but still don't have any fruit that has been pollinated.  On the other hand I have a couple of vines that do have some fruit that should continue to grow each day.

Here are some cantaloupes and watermelon fruits that are beginning to grow as of today.

This is just one cantaloupe that I have on my vines.  I have three total and if you count the watermelon that that means I have four melons total.

This is one watermelon that I have so far.  With just two plants I should hopefully be able to harvest two watermelons.  The one below is from the first plant that was transplanted early in the season.

Cucumbers are also growing quite well and a few more that will be ready by this weekend are just waiting to be harvested.  I ate the first one today and it tasted real sweet and no bitterness at all.  This is what I hope for every garden season.  Check out all the cucumbers that will be picked very soon.

Aside from melons and cucumbers I am getting some beans starting to grow as well.  I happened to get them earlier than last season, but this is just one plant that has a bean.  When a large enough harvest comes I will be sure that I let you know.

Some peppers are coming through as well.