What's happening in the late July edible garden

Butterfly on zinnias in the garden

Sunday, July 21, 2024

We are harvesting eggplants, summer squash, peppers, sprouting broccoli, herbs, okra, onions, cucumbers, lettuce, lima beans, snap beans, winged beans and tomatoes.   We are getting steady amounts of rainfall on most weeks so only the pots are needing water consistently.  Have had to water the beds twice so far this summer.  The flowers are very happy, too! 

Both the hot and sweet pepper plants have peppers on them.  Have been harvesting the hot peppers I overwintered consistently and got my first Poblano pepper today.  Peppers are for every taste and garden

Tomatoes are producing decent this year.  We have gotten more rain and heat than usual this year.  Our grass is still green in late July!  The plants greenery are full and tall in the pots but got burned pretty good in the upside down 5 gallon bucket system.  We started getting tomatoes, eggplants, cucumbers, and summer squash since the first of July.  The bumblebees love the cucumber, beans and squash flowers!  The vines are alive with buzzing with lots of bees every morning.

I am getting about 2 cucumbers every 3-4 days which is plenty for me to eat fresh and make pickles for my husband.  Some of the fruits now are smaller on one end than the other so they likely need to be fertilized.  I am getting a few eggplant each week.  So far all 3 varieties have fruited-AO Daimaru, Amadeo, and Listada de Gandia.  All do well in our heat and humidity and don't turn bitter like other varieties do.  Probably averaging a fruit every other week on each plant.  I have 4 plants so getting 2 per week.  I have them growing in partial shade in pots.  I could likely double the production if I sat them out in full sun.   

I only planted one okra, Red Burgundy, this year as I am the only one that eats it and one plant is all I need to put up enough okra for me for the year.  It has beautiful burgundy stems and fruits and large, creamy hibiscus looking flowers.  It is a beautiful plant.

Oregano in bloo

Our basil has been slow to get started but is now off to the races.  I can take my first harvest anytime.  You should take no more than a third of the plant at a time.  It will regrow to give me at least one more good harvest before fall.  If you wait to harvest, if you pinch the flowers off, it will keep the stems from getting woody.  Cardinal basil seems to not have this habit and it has a strong flavor to boot.  I grow the sweet basil and let it flower because the bees love it and harvest the Cardinal basil for pesto.  Basil basics-harvesting, preserving, growing basil

Our garlic is ready to be harvested.  I will harden in the shade on our outdoor, covered deck for a couple of weeks before bringing indoors and putting it in a dry, dark place to store until I am ready to pickle it and take cloves to replant in the fall.  Garlic harvest time is near!

Oregano is in full bloom.  The bees love the purple flowers!  It could be cut and dried now, but I love the flowers and will wait until fall.  Harvest and preserve your herbs

Lettuce gone to seed

I fertilized all the pots again as well as some of the veggies in the garden.  It is good to fertilize pots biweekly and garden plants monthly during the growing season to give them the nutrition they need to produce well. Summer garden tips

  

Most of my typical lettuce has gone to seed.  When you see the white fuzzies, they are ready to remove the seeds.  I just pull the seed heads, break apart, put in a ziplock freezer bag, label with type and date, and store in the refrigerator.  It is time to get more seedlings going for the fall harvests.  Never ending salad from one packet of seeds  Seed saving-fun, easy and a cost saver

In the greens department, summer is a hard time for most greens.  Sprouting broccoli, different types of sorrel, arugula, dandelion greens, orach, amaranth, chard and herbs are all available.  The heat increases the sharpness of most greens.  Succession planting of lettuce and planting types that are resistant to bolting can keep your lettuce crop going.  Plant them in the coolest part of the yard where they are not in full sun all day and get shade in the afternoon.  Pots are a good option to be able to move them to the cooler part of the yard.  The greens that do not get bitter that I grow for summer salads are sprouting broccoli, New Zealand spinach, Red Malabar spinach, orach and amaranth.  Giant Blue Feather lettuce is not too sharp in taste and is a prolific self-seeder.  Growing summer salads  Bolt-free, sweet summer lettuces

I am not growing zucchini this year.  They produce more than we can eat at once.  You can use it as a substitute for pasta or lasagna.  You can also dry them to use in soups or roasts over the winter.  What to do with all that zucchini?!

I am growing Trombetta squash which can be used either as a summer or winter squash.  It is much less susceptible to diseases and it does not over produce.  It's the summer squash I am growing every year now.  I am also growing a few winter squashes-Mashed Potato, Warsaw spaghetti and Jarrahdale.  So far, I have not seen a squash that looks like Mashed Potato or Warsaw spaghetti but a ton that look like butternut squash.  Maybe the seed packet had the wrong the seeds in them?  I can use the butternut squash for pumpkin bread and pie so it's fine to have it instead.

The Blauhilde purple snap beans are producing a few each day.  The 1500 Year Old has not produced any beans yet.  These vines are lush and green.  The winged bean plant in the pot is producing beans, too.  I harvest from these three every few days and snap and freeze them.  I never saw the lima bean vines, Christmas Speckles, flower but there are many pods on the vines.  These pods you let go brown on the vine and then harvest.  Their foliage was a little on the yellow side so I gave them a side dressing of alfalfa meal for nitrogen boost.

The annual flowers are really rocking in the garden right now.  The daylilies, marigolds, zinnias, and celosias are doing extremely well this summer.  They attract all kinds of beautiful butterflies and moths as well as bees.  I love watching all the bees and butterflies that are visiting the garden.  

Summer garden is in full swing!