What's happening in the mid July edible garden

Butterfly on zinnias in the garden

Sunday, July 13, 2025

We are harvesting eggplants, peppers, sprouting broccoli, herbs, okra, onions, cucumbers, lettuce, summer greens, fruits 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! 

We started getting tomatoes, cucumbers, husk cherries, Aronia berries, raspberries, blackberries, and overwintered hot peppers at the end of June.  Lettuce bolted at the end of May and there are new volunteers up here and there to harvest from. Okra, some more peppers and one eggplant started producing this month.  I am getting most of my salads from summer greens. 

Both the hot and sweet pepper plants have been producing for a few weeks.  The Ancho peppers, chocolate sweet peppers, and sweet banana peppers have not started ripening yet.  Surprisingly the sweet banana pepper doesn't even have flowers yet.  It is in a pot that is pretty shady.  I may need to move it to more sun.  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 small tomatoes have produced quite a few.  The larger tomatoes are not breaking records but are getting a couple a week from each plant.  The Cherokee Purple in the garden bed has died back. 

Herbs are doing great.  Thyme, oregano, and basil are covered in tiny flowers.  The bumblebees love the herb flowers!  They are alive with buzzing with lots of bees every morning.

I have an apple tree, raspberries, blackberries, Aronia berries, Goji berries, husk cherries, blackberries and a tamarillo for fruit this year.  I have gotten fruit off all but the Goji berry and tamarillo so far this season.  The Goji berry bush just started flowering so it shouldn't be long now for it.  The tamarillo started flowering a couple of weeks ago and has green fruits on it so it should be soon for it as well.  I'm trying to grow enough fruits that I can eat in my homemade cereal in the morning year round.  The husk cherries and tamarillo plants are both annuals.  I may be able to overwinter the tamarillo so it produces earlier next year.  The blackberry, raspberry and blueberry bushes were all transplanted last year so it will be a couple of years before I get much production off of them.

I am getting about 2 cucumbers every 3-4 days which is plenty for me to eat fresh and make pickles for my husband.  I am only getting Turkish Orange eggplant.  So far the other three varieties AO Daimaru, Amadeo, and Listada de Gandia have not fruited.  All do well in our heat and humidity and don't turn bitter like other varieties do.  I have 4 plants so getting 2 per week when they all start producing.  I have them growing in partial shade in pots.  I could likely double the production if I sat them out in full sun.   

I planted two okra, Red Burgundy, this year as I am the only one that eats it and two plants are 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 but very short this year.  Not sure why.  It is producing on both 2' tall plants.

Oregano in bloo

For basil, they are bushy and 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 woody 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

I think the garlic and shallots are close to ready to be harvested.  It doesn't look like the onions have bulbed, but I need to brush back the dirt and verify.  After harvesting, 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 to use up the extras.  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 put it in a new bed and it hasn't grown over 6".  I have started another one that I will put in an existing bed.  The pole beans that I started in this new bed have not grown much either.  I'll need to add compost to this new bed this fall to get it up to snuff for next year.  

I have a butternut squash that did well last year in an existing bed, but seems to be struggling this year which is a bummer because I love using them for pumpkin bread and pumpkin pie!

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!