What's happening in the mid July garden

Thursday, July 18, 2013

4th of July in the USA brings thoughts of Independence Day, fireworks, and ripe tomatoes!  True to tradition, our first ripe tomatoes came off the vine the week of the 4th of July.

In addition, we are now harvesting White Italian eggplants, Crockneck zucchini, cucumbers and fava beans.  The Cayenne, Jalapeño, Pimento, and Ancho pepper plants are loaded.  The Pimento pepper is turning so it should be red in a few days.

The fava beans are putting on their second flush of beans.  They could be picked now and eaten as green beans, left on the vine to harvest as lima beans, or cut down to keep nitrogen in the soil to feed the veggies planted next to them for the rest of the summer.

Oregano in bloom

The first round of garlic has been harvested and is getting hardened in the shade outdoors for two weeks and the elephant garlic looks to be ready to harvest next week end.

Our basil has been slow to get started but is now off to the races.  I will harvest in a couple of weeks, cutting down to the first few sets of leaves.  It will regrow to give me at least one more good harvest before fall.

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.

I had cut the cabbage last month down to the first four leaves.  It has resprouted about four baby cabbages on each of their stems.   I will let them grow a little bigger before cutting and steaming them.

Lettuce gone to seed

I fertilized all the pots again as well as the basil to keep it growing.

The lettuce had gone to seed.  When you see the white fuzzies, they are ready to save.  I just pull the seed heads, break apart, put in a ziplock freezer bag, label with type and date, and store in the refrigerator.  I also re-seeded our Earth boxes with some of the seeds.  I had a few small volunteer lettuce plants elsewhere in the garden that I transplanted to the Earth boxes as well.  The lettuce seeds I planted last month have sprouted, but aren’t quit ready to transplant.

The extended forecast is calling for 90’s and no rain for the next 10 days.  Will start watering the beds this week and the pots will likely need to be watered about every other day.

Summer garden is in full swing!