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

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.

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.

Hundreds of Cherry Tomatoes are Just Waiting to be Harvested

Although there plenty of cherry tomatoes to be picked that doesn’t mean that there are no other types of tomatoes or vegetables ready for harvesting.  In fact I have been picking steakhouse tomatoes throughout the past week and have been enjoying them on a daily basis with my sandwiches.  Roma tomatoes are also just about ready to be turned into sauce once I pick just a few more in the next couple of days.

Eggplants are confirmed to finally be pollinated now that all three plants have at least one good size vegetable thriving.  I am going to wait as long as possible in order to get them to get them as large as possible before harvesting them.  Making eggplant Parmesan out of them is the best meal to make with this unique vegetable.

My sunflowers that I have planted through the season at different times are now producing their flower heads and should soon be opening.  The first ones I planted back in April or May are the first to start producing heads and will most likely be the first to open.  I would say that they will start opening very soon and maybe by the end of this week.

My melons are doing quite well and most of my vines have at least one melon growing on them.  I have a couple of crimson sweet watermelons that are growing the best out of all of them. 

My pumpkins have also started to ripen and one of the first ones is pretty much totally orange in color and probably ready to pick soon.  While the first one is done ripening I still have others that have just started producing pumpkins.  I hope that this new one will be able to get to a good size even though it is late producing a pumpkin.

My cucumber vines are on their way to producing plenty of vegetables.  Most of them have plenty of flowers which means I should have plenty of cucumbers in the near future from most of them.  I picked three of them today from three separate plants.  I can’t wait to many more of them.

Short Corn Season with Plenty of Ears Harvested

Although the season for corn was a little short I actually got quite a bit of ears from this variety of corn.  Most of the stalks had multiple ears for picking while previous types of corn that I have planted previously only had one and sometimes two.  Ambrosia is definitely one to grow if you are interested in picking more than just one ear per stalk.

Many of the corn that was picked was frozen so that I can have a little taste of summer during the cold winter season.  I still have others that have been cooked and need to be eaten right away.  As long as you keep corn in the fridge they should be fine for several weeks.   So far it has only been a week or two since I have cooked the first harvest of corn.

Although now that corn is done for 2018 I still have plenty of other vegetables that still need care for a few more months.  For instance my peppers have been growing since I planted them a while ago and it is just about time to pick some peppers off the plants.  One pepper was picked this week and with the amount of flowers on the plants I am sure to get many others this season.

Another harvest of cucumbers was completed this afternoon and they look quite well for consumption.  I wanted to make sure that they stopped growing on the vine before picking them.  I don’t like picking them when they are ripe, but instead wait until they stop growing to their full size.

Not only were cherry tomatoes picked, but on one of my tomato plants there was a steakhouse tomato that was surely ripe enough for picking.  I like to pick them just before they are ready to turn red.  This is the prime time to pick them and they will last a little bit longer than if I was to wait for it to turn a dark red color.  Picking these tomatoes will last longer and stay firm for a good duration