So I haven’t posted in about a week and while this will probably be the norm going forward I wanted to leave you all with a general update of the garden.
We have been harvesting our very own veggies for the last three weeks at the very least, and well to be honest July was great for us. We have some growth from the seedlings we planted last week but nothing explosive as of yet. Though on that note either Chaos or another four legged animal seems to have been in the garden and absolutely loved the bean sprouts. Who or whatever it was seems to of eaten about ½ of the sprouts and might be saving the other ½ for a snack later.
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- Cantaloupe sprouts planted
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- Broccoli sprouts planted
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- Cabbage sprouts
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- Bean Sprouts
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- Lots of beans planted
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- Bell pepper seedlings starting to come up
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- Spinach sprouts growing
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- Iceburg lettuce and Spinach sprouts growing
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- Bell pepper sprouts growing away
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- Cantaloupe plants growing away
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- Iceburg lettuce is growing nicely
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- The remaining bean plants fighting for survival
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- Cantaloupe looking really good this morning
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- Broccoli still growing and looking a little bit better since transplanting
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- Cabbage is not looking so hot, i don’t think this one did so well after the move.
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- Spinach and Iceburg lettuce doing well this morning
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- The bell peppers this morning, looking nice and healthy
The tomatoes are growing really well and are very top heavy due to the new growth. I have taken to calling them “the destroyer of cages” as they just topple the cages after it rains and I have to keep pruning them back! In general they just keep producing a lot of nice green tomatoes, just waiting for them to ripen up and be ready to pick. The beef steak surprisingly still has its tomato and I also found a couple small new ones so we may end up with a few nice sized beefsteaks in the end.
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- Tomato plants are getting huge
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- Lots of tomato plant growth, keep pruning them back so they don’t ruin the cages
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- The remaining bean plants
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- The original beefsteak tomato, its finally starting to fatten up
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- I spy some more tiny beefsteaks in there, looks like blt’s will be on the menu when the tomatoes and lettuce are done ^_^
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- Close up of the tiny beefsteak tomatoes
The watermelon plants are growing very well and are still trying to take over the entire garden. I have to continually get out there and move the vines to okay growing area rather then say up the tomato cages. We have one melon that is about a bit bigger then my fist and we’re really hoping no one finds and eats it under the leaves! We noticed another small melon but so far its still about the size of a nickel and hasn’t done much this week.
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- The lone watermelon in the garden so far
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- The garden is looking pretty good all in all, nice and green and really no pests besides whatever is eating the beans. Chaos in the background playing it cool until i turn away.
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- The watermelon vines are some long things, id guess about 15ft at least if not more.
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- The onion is still alive and kicking down there, under the cover of the watermelon vines. The tomatoes are fighting back apparently!
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- Serrano plant being overcome by the watermelon
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- Serrano pepper plants are producing good
On the other side of the garden we have the cucumber plants. These are still growing and producing exceptionally well. I’m almost glad we didn’t plant more or we’d be trying to give them away rather then using them.
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- Bee on the cucumbers doing it’s thing
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- Cucumber flowers
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- Cucumber plants growing on the trellis
As you know we tried two times to make dill pickles and as you also know I ended up tanking on try one real bad with the salt. Test two has been in the jar for about a week now and has a very good flavor but still need a bit more time to soak up that brine and get all that good flavor in each crunchy bite. Me, Elisha, and Meghanne all tried them two days in to ensure there wasn’t a lot of salt and all was good. I also Serrano’s to one of the jars to add a bit of spice and kick to see if its worth it, we shall see in about a week or so.
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- Dill pickles round #2
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- Dill pickles round #2, looking good
[cooked-recipe id=”3560″]
And lastly since I’ve been saving the small cucumbers as I see them, I plan to try my hand at some sweet pickles. Angela just despises dill pickles and only eats the small sweet gerkins (just another name for pickles I found out usually used in Europe). I plan to get these going in the next couple days, though from most the recipes I’ve found it takes at least three to five days to get them ready to even jar so stay tuned and check back for that update!
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