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| Baby peppers on potted pepper plant |
Saturday, July 11, 2026
We are harvesting tomatoes, peppers, summer squash, cucumber, eggplant, herbs, onions, lettuce, Red Malabar spinach, New Zealand spinach, Chinese Multicolor Spinach amaranth, and sprouting broccoli. Petunias, zinnias, fairy lilies, daylilies, marigolds, lantana, Cock's Comb and milkweed are all blooming. With the heat, I am now watering fairly consistently.
I got my summer veggies started late this year. Peppers, beans, and squash are all behind where they normally are for this time of year.
I just started getting cucumbers today. Tomatoes are doing pretty good. Peppers are loaded. The melons, summer and winter squash I started from seed are flowering and growing quickly. I did get a couple of summer squash off 2 different vines but they have died. I have 2 more summer squash vines so all is not lost.
The bean vines are growing quickly. A couple are starting to flower so beans aren't far off.
The hot pepper plants I overwintered have been fruiting since May and the sweet pepper plants have lots of green peppers and flowers.
Tomatoes are pretty well on schedule this year for fruits. Got our first ones last month on the potted Better Boy and production has started on the in ground peppers last week. I have flowers and tomatoes on all the plants except the Brandywine. Brandywine tomatoes have about the longest "days to harvest" of any tomato plant at 100 days so not surprising it is the last one to produce. Brandywines take the longest to begin producing of all the tomatoes I am growing this year.
It is always a good idea to have 2 plantings of tomatoes if you want to have alot of tomatoes. As the early plants start dying back, you can count on the younger plants to pick up the slack. I may start a couple this week as back ups.
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| Oregano in bloom |
Our basil isn't very big yet. I transplanted them late as it took forever for them to take off after sprouting with the cloudy May we had. Probably be at least a couple of weeks before I can do my first harvest for pesto making. They should still regrow to give me at least one more good harvest before fall. Basil basics-harvesting, preserving, growing basil
Oregano is in bloom. The bees love the purple flowers! I need to check to see which herbs I need to dry to make my herb blend before summer is over. I use this blend on/in everything from sauces to eggs to grilled chicken. Harvest and preserve your herbs
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| Lettuce gone to seed |
I fertilized all the pots again as well as the veggies in the garden using ReVita Pro dry fertilizer. 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. I may use fertilizer spikes in pots the next time as it is slower release so hopefully it will get me through a month or so. Summer edible garden tips
Most of the lettuce has 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. You can also leave them on the plant and you will get volunteer lettuce plants. This year, I am being lazy and just either bending the seed heads over a pot that I want to get more lettuce going or cutting the seed head off and putting it into a pot to re-seed my pots. It takes a couple of weeks for them to be of baby lettuce size to harvest. I have several seedlings coming up.
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. Growing summer salads Bolt-free, sweet summer lettuces
You may have to start the seeds indoors this time of year because lettuce doesn't germinate very well if soil temperatures are about 70-75 degrees F. 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 the most common crops we grow for salads. Sprouting broccoli, some lettuce, different types of sorrel, leafy cabbage, sweet leafy mustards, amaranth, arugula, dandelion greens, chard, lettuce, kale, cress, orach and herbs are all options. The heat increases the sharpness of most of the traditional greens.
I added a couple of varieties of greens that have a similar taste to spinach and lettuce years ago. Red Malabar spinach, New Zealand spinach, sprouting broccoli, amaranth, orach, Barese chard, and Hilton Chinese cabbage are now staples in my summer greens garden. They are not true spinach or lettuce but have similar flavor and are heat tolerant. They don't get bitter in the heat.
If you have extras of chard, dandelion greens, sprouting broccoli, sorrel, sprouting broccoli, kale or cabbage, you can blanch and freeze them for steamed winter greens. Freezing the extras for winter
The annual flowers are doing well in the garden right now. 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.
Key chores to keep the summer garden producing is to pick often, make sure plants have even moisture, keep ahead of pests, and give the plants the nutrition they need to keep going.
This time of year, it is so nice to be able to walk through the garden and pick what is ripe for dinner and watch the garden grow.
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