Let’s Start off a New Decade of Gardening Right

Over the Winter I was thinking about some new seeds or plants that I should try out during this new season.   I came up with one idea and decided that I should start trying to grow some hot peppers along with the normal sweet peppers that I grow each year.  That is when thought about growing the hottest pepper on the planet at the moment: The Carolina Reaper.   This is supposed to be the hottest pepper and even hotter than the ghost pepper.  I also bought some habanero peppers to go along with it.

Aside from growing some new peppers this year I also am thinking about growing a larger spring crop this season.  I might be adding some cabbage, broccoli, brussel sprouts and maybe some celery to this year’s spring season.  This would go along with my normal crop of potatoes, lettuce, spinach, peas, and radishes. 

I am not sure if I am going to do this, but it is an idea I was going to look over.  I will have to make sure not to grow too much or I would not have enough room for my summer plants.  This is just something I was thinking about doing.

For my spring crop I have started planting seeds of both lettuce and spinach.  These are two crops I plan to have growing in the garden within a month or so.  I placed them in a cool place this year since they grow best when in temperatures of 50-60 degrees.  I could place them in cold frames outside, but for now I am keeping them indoors just to give them a little head start.

 Wildflowers, dill, and alyssum are also planted indoors right now.  I planted them about a couple of weeks ago before my lettuce and spinach.  I love using these plants because they are good at attracting some of the best insects in the area and are a great help during the whole season

A Good End to The Summer Garden Harvests

Eggplants this season was more prominent than any other summer or spring crop.  I had planted close to thirty eggplant plants and received at least one or more from each plant.  I picked some of the last eggplants a couple of weeks ago just before a frost ended the season for most of my plants.  Close to a dozen were picked in this last harvest
 

The frost ends the season for all my summer plants and starts the season for harvesting my fall crops that include broccoli and brussel sprouts.  Carrots will also be harvested during the fall season as well, but that will be a little bit later in the month. 

My last tomato plant that was still growing after most of them were done for the season has finally finished growing the most tomatoes that it could during the time that it had.  It grew some of the best beefsteak tomatoes this season and some of the best that I have ever grown.  This year I grew a different variety of tomatoes and still focused on beefsteak, but instead of a large type I decided to grow a basic type of tomato.

 

 Now on to my fall crop which I am very much looking forward to.  I have actually started harvesting both my broccoli and brussel sprouts.  I have only begun to harvest just the large heads of my broccoli plants, but soon I will be harvesting the side shoots that come after cutting off the head.  So far I have just cut a couple of large heads that were ready earlier than many of the others.  I would say that the next couple of weeks most of the heads will be removed from my broccoli plants.
 

I wasn’t sure if it was time to start picking my brussel sprouts, but the plant had stopped growing and most of the brussel sprouts looked like they were pretty much ready for consumption.  Instead of picking the whole plant I just started with about have of them and the rest I will get later in the fall season.

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.

I Think My Eggplants and Pole Beans are Ready for the First Harvest

So far I have harvested mostly all types of my tomatoes I planted such as cherry, Roma, and beefsteak.  I have also been picking peppers as well.  Recently I have started with my pole beans which have been ready for quite some time.  I actually started picking sometime at the end of August and consistently through the month of September.  Melons were another fruit that I started picking from the garden and have eaten three cantaloupes and one honeydew melon.  The last and most recent vegetable that was ready for picking were my eggplants.

The first one I started picking a few weeks ago were my cantaloupes which had fallen of the vine and is a good indication that they are done and fully ripe for consumption.  They were definitely a decent size and all of them were ripe and very juicy.  I still have one left out in the garden which I am hoping will be ripe sometime this month.

I then worked my way to my pole beans which had plenty of beans and many flowers that were eventually going to turn in more beans for harvesting.  Most of my vines are producing plenty of beans and are still growing flowers even though the days are getting shorter each day.  I think I will have a few more harvests before the vines stop producing or at least slow down.  I have canned many of them and have frozen several beans and have used fresh ones for a few meals at the moment.

The last vegetable on the list that has yet to be picked are my eggplants.  I planted many of them this year as compared to other years and there many plants with multiple eggplants that are a good size which may take a little bit of time to go through all of them.  I am not worried because there are a few good recipes that you can use with them.  I have picked a total of five eggplants over the past couple of days and there are many where they came from.  I will probably start picking them on a weekly basis depending on weather conditions.
 

Wondering What I have Been harvesting Today?

Today was quite a busy day with cutting the tops of the onions now that they are dry enough to bring inside.  I also decided to pick the rest of the corn that were on the stalks, picking several cucumbers, picking a zucchini, and putting away the tables that the onions were drying on.  Now I just need to wait for things such as melons, eggplant, and pumpkins to ripen so I can harvest them as well.
 

For the moment I have been continuing to harvest peppers, cucumbers, zucchini, and corn.  The very last of the corn was harvested this afternoon.  There might be an ear here or there still on the stalks, but they will not be very big and not worth the time to pick them.  I will remove the husk from them and place them in my onion totes which will decompose over the winter for nutrients for my onions in the spring time. 

 

Zucchini I have been picking for the longest this season.  I now have four newer plants that were added about a month or so ago and they are at the point that they might be producing female flowers real soon.  This means that I might actually have time to begin picking zucchini from them.  I just picked a large zucchini from one of the older ones that were transplanted into the garden.  This is the biggest so far this season and hopefully will get several more before the season is done.

Peppers are also a very consistent vegetable to pick through the season.  I have started picking them a week or so ago and now most of the plants have plenty of flowers along with plenty of peppers.  This season I planted Chinese giant instead of the normal California bell pepper.  They are very similar except for the fact that the Chinese giant ones maybe a little bit bigger than others.  I guess I will find out with time how big they can get.