Things are definitely taking a turn in the garden toward fall and I’m feeling anxious to plant some fall plants. I probably should have planted some fall plants last week (see my recent post about what to plant) – but I just didn’t get around to it. Hopefully next week.
I did spend some serious time thinning out my carrots – a painful process to pull up the carrots prematurely, but I know it’s the right thing to do for the ones still in the ground. And of course we ate the “baby” carrots and fed the greens to our chickens – so there was no waste – which makes me happy. I just adore the colors of the purple carrots (they are orange inside!) and so do my kids – I think they will be something we will plant every year. (Got carrots to eat? Check out this roasted balsamic carrot recipe!)
Yeppers – I grew a pepper! I am so stinking proud of this one pepper that I am almost feeling too prideful! But seriously, it feels like a super accomplishment and it is the crunchiest pepper I have ever eaten.
I have more peppers growing, but they have very unique shapes. 🙂 I don’t think I’ll get another perfectly shaped pepper – but if they taste as good as the first one, I won’t mind.
The leeks are looking good! I have no idea when I should harvest these. They are getting pretty tall – in fact they are so tall, and pointy, that when I was leaning over the plant to prune another plant, a leek leaf poked me in the left eye. I’m totally serious. My eye watered (or leaked, LOL) for two days. And my husband and I just laughed and shook our heads – because if someone could injure themselves with the leaf of a leek, it would be me. The hazards of gardening, I guess. 🙂
Let’s talk tomatoes. I have gazillions. Yes, that many. The plants are UGLY, UGLY, UGLY. Broken, weighted down and sprawling everywhere. The metal stakes that I put in this spring are either broken or bent. The plants are filled with tomatoes on every branch. All green. Earlier this week I spent about 40 minutes trimming my three tomato plans – A LOT. By trimming them I hope to have them ripen the tomatoes already on the plant instead of growing new ones. Hopefully I didn’t harm the plants.
These are a variety of cherry tomato.
I think these are a Roma variety. They look like little pears. All green.
And I want to say these are Early Girl tomatoes? Although they didn’t ripen early, so who knows why they are called that!
And then we have the HUGE pumpkin and it’s little mini me pumpkin. They are growing just perfectly and starting to turn orange! So exciting. . .
If you’re just now joining my gardening journey, I’m learning as I go grow and sharing along the way:
- First I built the raised beds
- Then I added dirt and added plants
- and for fun, we created a DIY Worm Compost Bin
- The garden is part of our quest to be more self-sufficient this year. We also got chickens! See our chicken journey here.
How’s your garden doing?Â
Arlene says
You do have gazillion green tomatoes! Thanks for sharing as my tomatoes look much like yours, cherry and early girl mostly green. Thinking it must have something to do with our weather this summer…maybe too many cool nights.
Celia says
Oh and your leeks look ready! Pick em soon!
Celia says
That’s Western WA for ya! 😉 It’s interesting learning about the varieties of tomatoes…
http://faq.gardenweb.com/faq/lists/tomato/2000082337022708.html
DeAnn says
A friend introduced us to THE best tomato cages! We bought them at Lowe’s…they have 3 stakes and you place the side supports where you need them, which means if you need to, you can adjust them as the plant grows!
Anne says
Holy Tomatoes! I’ve never seen anything like that! you have the bumper crop of the century. My plants look nothing like that.
Shannon says
I to trimmed my tomotoe plants. Knowing that the energy will now go to riping my tomatoes. Also harvested some broccoli, a zucchini and yeah, I think that was it. going to get some potatoes planted also some carrots. Waiting on my okra to grow. And for the sunflowers to to get seeds. My peppers seem to be taking forever! Oh yeah, also harvested green tomatoes too. Oh they were so very tasty!