Peak Season Garden Tour

The garden has gone into overdrive at this point in the season.  The plants have thoroughly taken over their beds and have been crowding the paths between beds too.  Making my way through the garden now is like a little adventure every morning.  Harvesting has become a daily chore as well.  I usually visit each bed with a large bowl and once I have picked all that I can, I make my way inside to deposit my bounty for further processing.

This was my first attempt at growing watermelons.  They got off to such a bad start this year that I didn't think I was going to get a harvest from this bed, but they surprised me.  After replanting them twice and then watching them stall out for several weeks after they germinated I wound up with two plants which are now growing quite happily.  I think I will get at least three melons from these plants so my efforts here aren't wasted after all.

The summer squash bed has been producing loads of squash for the past month or so, but things have finally started to slow down for this bed.  I have found that my patty pan and yellow squash have become infested with squash bugs and they are slowly but surely dying back.  The zucchini however seem unaffected thus far and are still going strong and giving me one or two squash daily.

The bed of Glass Gem Corn has made an excellent recovery after nearly dying from a watering system malfunction.  They are about five feet tall now and have sent up their tassels.  I do my best to help pollinate them when I find new silks peeking from between the leaves.  I look forward to the colorful harvest that I will get from this bed.

The cucumbers are doing extremely well.  They are spreading so much that they have invaded the beds on either side and would soon take over the garden if I gave them half a chance.  I fill a gallon bag with cucumbers for pickling nearly every day and at this point in the season I have pickled well over thirty quarts of them.  I expect they will keep this up until the frost hits so I still have at least several more weeks of this until I can take a break.

The peppers are quite happy as well.  The plants are heavy with fruit and I have already frozen several gallons of them.  I am saving my next big harvest for when I have enough tomatoes to make a batch of salsa.  Whatever doesn't go into salsa will end up in the freezer and I will be eating fresh peppers well into next year from the looks of things.

The tomatoes have become a massive solid wall of vegetation and have grown taller than the trellis that I have secured them to.  I have given up on trying to train them any longer though I might trim back some of the more unruly ones just so I can walk down the path to harvest them.  They are still ripening very slowly though I am now getting a few each day, though still not enough to make a batch of salsa.  I fear that they will decide to ripen all at once and if that happens I hope I can find the freezer space to take on this many tomatoes.  I have never tried to grow this many tomatoes at once, but apparently I am doing something right from the looks of things.  

These peas were planted after the first onion harvest and so far they look to be growing quite well.  In previous years my attempts at growing fall peas didn't do well because I waited to long to get them into the dirt.  This year I might have gotten the timing right and if I am lucky I will be able to harvest them right around the time that the weather starts to cool.

The green beans are doing very well now that they have filled in the bed.  I had to replant this bed three or four times and was afraid that I wouldn't get very many to freeze for my winter stores.  Thankfully these plants grow quickly and I am now harvesting beans from the seeds that were planted last.  I am very happy with the quality of these beans too.  They grow very long and even when they are large, they remain tender and stringless.  I wasn't going to grow this variety again, but now that they have actually done well, I might consider them for future plantings.

Carrots are the main crop in this bed, though they have been taken over by weeds.  There was supposed to be cabbage on either side of the carrots, but the seedlings that germinated were killed by slugs.  Only two of them survived the slug attack, so I may still get a couple of cabbages out of the deal, but I'm not sure they will finish growing by the time the weather changes. 

The broccoli bed is finally getting around to making broccoli for me.  The plants didn't send up any flower heads until just a few weeks ago.  From the looks of things I will get about nine or ten nice heads of broccoli from this bed.  Broccoli is another crop that I store in the freezer.  I think this crop will be ready soon and will probably get processed in one session just to make my life a little easier. 

Last but not least on this tour is my flower bed.  The irises that were planted this spring have made a full recovery and it looks like they will be here to stay.  The wildflowers that I planted behind them also are doing quite well and have added lots of color to my yard.  I love to look out at see the diversity that I have helped flourish in this small space that I have to work with.  Not only are there plenty of happy, healthy veggies and flowers, but there is also new wildlife in my yard.  I have come across salamanders and toads, all manner of insects and several different species of birds that didn't hang around my yard when I first moved here.