Holy harvest Batman! A week of miserably gloriously hot days means things really got cookin’ in the garden. I was able to fill up our entire patio table with zucchini, cucumbers, chard, green beans, chives, lettuce and fava beans. It’s just amazing how much pops up in one week.
My pumpkin “patch” is huge and it’s only one plant, I can hardly believe it. My main pumpkin is getting huge and it’s turning orange! And it has a few other smaller pumpkins following behind. It’s right smack dab in the middle of my strawberry patch – I totally underestimated the space it would use.
We pulled a bunch of stuff out of the raised beds this week – like my spinach that went to seed and the fava beans that we harvested. Now we have a lot of extra space to possibly add some fall plants. Maybe I will do that tomorrow or mid-week – because I really want to keep growing into October or longer if it is so generous. (See my earlier post about what you can plant for a fall garden).
Tomatoes abound EVERYWHERE. I would say I easily have 100+ growing between my five different plants. But they are all very green. The minute one turns red it immediately ends up in someones mouth (usually my kids!). We are all like bounty hunters every time we go outside – the first one to find it, gets to eat it. And those short kiddos of mine have the advantage. 🙂 Before we know it we’ll have more tomatoes than we care to think about – and I can’t wait!
My peppers are chugging along. I haven’t harvested any yet, but I’m sooo close! I accidentally broke this poor pepper off when I was inspecting the plant. Boo-hoo, have you ever done that before? It was going to be such a pretty pepper! My plants are multi-colored peppers, so I’m guessing this one was on it’s way to being a purple pepper (is there such a thing?). . . I have no idea – maybe it would have turned red. First year doing this, so I have no clue.
My basil seems to have rebounded since I massacred it earlier this month to make a pile of pesto, which I froze. Can’t wait to make more of that! Or perhaps I will be able to mix it into some fresh tomato spaghetti sauce if/when we can get some ripe tomatoes.
My carrots – both purple and orange varieties – are getting really crowded. I’m going to have to do the painful thinning process and pull out some of the carrots so the others can really grow to full size. I might do this tomorrow. We will eat the smaller ones that we will thin out. Anyone else struggle with this? I feel so bad pulling them out – but I know it needs to be done.
I harvested another round of green beans! I love these – next year I’m planting more! We grilled these with a little olive oil and salt last night for dinner. . .yum and so easy!
I never knew it was so easy to grow cucumbers! I’m finding new english cucumbers popping up every week! English cucumbers cost, on average, $1.99 each at the store – so this plant has paid for itself many times over and they are so good when they are fresh.
I have a ton of lettuce to harvest – the lettuce seemed to like the hot weather, but I think it wants to bolt, so I’m going to try and harvest all the lettuce this week.
I am shocked at how much food can come from six raised beds! And this is haphazardly grown – I can only imagine how much better I’ll get from all the trial and error and learning I’m going through. I can see how people get hooked on gardening! Are you planting a fall or winter garden? What plants are you harvesting these days?
If you’re just now joining my gardening journey, I’m learning as I go grow and sharing along the way:
The garden is part of our quest to be more self-sufficient this year. We also got chickens this summer! See our chicken journey here.
Celia says
Yes, there are purple peppers! My favorite are sweet chocolate peppers.
Jessica says
I am so jealous of your garden! We ripped out our raised beds last year and replaced them with landscape plants but now I want them back after seeing all of the great gardening you’ve been able to do. I miss my strawberry and green bean plants! Maybe next year.. 🙂
Sylvia says
I know how tough it is to thin carrots, but my chicken & bunnies sure love the green’s from these! Your bounty looks great this week!