A Mid-July Harvest

I look forward to this time every year.  The first artichokes are in.  (Yes!  It's possible to grow artichokes in Vermont!)  They don't seem to mind the hotter than usual weather we've been experiencing so far this summer, though the plants are growing much lower to the ground than usual.   I know what I'll be eating for the rest of the week.

Also, my onions are looking fairly decent compared to years past.  I went back to starting them from seed and waited until the chance of any frost was over before setting them out.  This seemed to have helped.


Aside from the Sungold and Black cherries, I picked our first slicing tomato this past weekend - a Cherokee Purple I believe.  Usually the first tomatoes of the season aren't so great but this one was VERY good.  It still amazes me how different (and amazing) homegrown heirloom tomatoes are compared to anything you might find at the supermarket or even most farmers markets.

I also picked the first hot peppers of summer.   Hungarian Wax is incredibly early and always a reliable producer.

And they make the best pickled hot peppers in my opinion. 

Our Raised Beds

These pictures are outdated at this point but here's an idea of what we have planted in the raised beds behind our unit.  The largest one closest to the house contains most of my tomatoes, all of my peppers, some cucumbers and bush beans.  I'm not growing nearly as many tomatoes as I used to but I still think that we'll have enough to suit our needs.

I was hoping that, like the slugs, the cucumber beetles here would not be as bad as they were at the old garden.  Unfortunately, they are even WORSE and it'll be interesting to see whether I'll be able to get a decent cucumber harvest this year.


I also have some container tomatoes this years.  Orange Blossom is the lone early determinate tomato I'm growing this year.  I figured it would be best suited for container growing.

In addition to these, we have melons and zucchini planted behind our house.  And as the spring greens and veggies clear out, I'll plant our falls veggies starting in late July.

I still find it fascinating to think that these little flowers result in something as amazingly delicious as an heirloom tomato.

Tomatoes and Peppers

I think I started my tomatoes and peppers a bit too early this year.  I've never had tomato seedlings grow this quickly before.  Then again, I've never had growing room that provided the kind of warmth and light that tomato plants love.


At the moment, my tomatoes are about two feet tall.  I decided to move them to our unheated screened porch which still gets tons of light from a glass ceiling.  Hopefully this cooler environment will slow down their growth until it's warm enough for me to set them out.

Mid-September Harvest

This week will officially mark the end of our summer growing season. Strangely and unlike years past, I'm actually looking forward to the fall and winter. Growing you own food teaches you many virtues, including patience, and the fact that there's a time for everything. As the colder and darker months approach, the garden will rest and I'll get to take a break from the daily chores associated with it. Maybe I'll even find the time and focus to work on that cookbook I've been neglecting. Maybe.

It's only appropriate that we should celebrate the end of summer by harvesting our one and only pumpkin. I hadn't planned on growing pumpkin this year but Jonathan suggested it during one of our many trips to the plant nursery. This will be the first time we get to carve a pumpkin we grew ourselves.

Also, I couldn't help thinking of the recent cantaloupe recall when I picked the last cantaloupe of the year.


This might also be the end of our tomatoes and cucumbers. We can't be too heartbroken because we've had a good harvest this year. I also picked most of our Poblano peppers, which are tasting quite hot. The long beans continue to produce even when the bush beans are long gone.


This is most definitely the last of our slicing tomatoes. The vines are screaming to be pulled up. Anyway, they were delicious in a BLT sandwich I made the other day.


Finally, I harvested the first of our fall bok choy yesterday and they are looking terrible. The slugs and cabbage worms are really active right now, much more so than last year. The delicate green parts of the leaves were too hole-y to eat, but fortunately for us, the white crunchy bits (my favorite part) are still flawless. Thank goodness for small miracles.

Early September Harvest

Can you believe we're approaching the middle of September already? I consider September to be a fleeting month in the gardening calendar but this is ridiculous. The garden is transitioning quickly right before our eyes (too quickly if you ask me) and before before you know it, most of our summer crops will be reduced to dust. The daily highs are expected to reach only into the 60's later on this week. Something tells me that our first fall frost will arrive earlier than usual this year.

This weekend, I picked all of my Sweet Banana peppers and pulled the plants to make room for some fall sowings of radishes, claytonia and mache. I'm a bit late with these this year but that's what happens when your garden is overtaken by mosquitoes.


The tomato vines are looking horrible now. Our paste tomatoes are still producing but the rest have succumb to disease.




The fall berries are coming in consistently, but a little at a time. I might try to root some raspberry canes next year to expand our current patch.


Finally, I ripped out our zucchini vines last week and discovered these two monsters. They are hard and heavy at this point. I wonder if they are even edible at this stage. At the very least, we can use them as fall decorations.

Labor Day Harvest

It's only fitting that I should celebrate this Labor day weekend by doing absolutely no gardening work. It 's not by choice of course. The mosquitoes are merciless right now, attacking in threes and fours and even during the mid-day hours. I'm already looking forward to the second fall frost (which takes care of the mosquitoes that aren't killed by the first fall frost).

I don't know what I'm gonna do with all of this opo. There are about a foot long and weigh around three pounds each. If I had Asian neighbors, I'd gladly share as opo does not have a very long shelf life.


The slicing tomatoes have slowed down but the paste tomatoes are still going strong. We've met our tomato needs for the year so I'll have to find a home for these.


I picked the last two acorn squash and two more watermelons this week.


The Yellow Sunshine watermelon was picked about a week too early. I have one left in the garden. Hopefully I can get it perfect with the last one.


The last Blacktail Mountain watermelon was the best. If I had waited any longer, it would been overripe.


Our small patch of fall raspberries are producing well in the second year despite the fact that half of the canes had succumb to the raspberry cane borer. We are getting a little bowl full each day.


Finally, we also harvested a few fun things this week including some sunflower seeds...


...and some decorative Indian corn. I wonder if they can pop them.

Late August Harvest

A few weeks ago I was speculating that we might not have planted enough tomatoes this year. Well, let's just say that I'm not feeling that way now.


I'm happy to say that we've now preserved enough tomato sauce, puree(for soup) and salsa to get us through the next 12 months. Sure we weren't able to give away as many tomatoes as I would have liked but 20 plants seem to be the magic number for us. More than that just creates more unnecessary work and would waste valuable growing space.


Our peppers have done really well this year, particularly the Hungarian Wax. I've been roasting, peeling and freezing all of them. I have a lot of Jalapeno peppers that I think I'll let turn red and then make hot sauce.


Before this weekend's storm arrived, I pulled the rest of my soy beans.


We ended up with a good haul of pods, which has since been frozen. Edamame is a great snack for kids because the steamed beans are so fun to shell and eat.


I also picked two of our Blacktail Mountain watermelons and acorn squash. The squash vine was practically dead from borers and powdering mildew.


The first watermelon I picked was good.

The second one I picked was GREAT!

This Week's Pickings

It's all about tomatoes again this week, not that I'm complaining. Lately I've been canning salsa and making sauce as much as I can to get our reserves back up. While it can be labor intensive at times, preserving your homegrown harvest is always deeply satisfying.

Aside from the tomatoes, I picked the last of this year's savoy cabbage and the first of our soybeans (edamame)and Poblano peppers. Despite the groundhog assault, I was able to get a fairly decent harvest from our early-sown bed of soybeans. I have two more that should be ready in a week or two.

Another sign that the end of summer is fast approaching, I picked the first of our fall raspberries the other day.

Mid-August Bounty

This post is a bit late, but here is what we harvested in the past week. The tomatoes are finally starting to ripen in large numbers. This year I grew half as many plants as we did last year (forty), which in some ways is good since last summer at this time, it was quite stressful trying to keep up with the tomato harvest. However, this year I'm a bit worried that we may not have grown enough to get us by in sauce and salsa for the next twelve months. I may have to increase the number of plants for next year.


Speaking of tomatoes, my Gold Medal and Brandywine (Sudduth's Strain) vines are producing enormous fruit. It's not uncommon for a tomato plant to produce a couple of whoppers but in this case, most of them are pretty hefty. I'm a sucker for big ugly tomatoes.

As you can see, I have a few green paste tomatoes here as well. They were salvaged when the branch holding the cluster snapped.


I picked all of my Tongue of Fire beans this week. I've never cooked with fresh shell beans before. If anyone has any suggestions, please let me know!


The last of our sweet corn. :(


Two delicious Athena cantaloupes. (On a side note, I bought two amazing Canary and Piel de Sapo melons from the market the other week. I saved some seeds to hopefully grow them next year.)


I must be growing a different variety of purple tomatilloes this year because these are almost jet black. I'm excited to make a batch of purple tomatillo salsa. The watermelon you see here was picked because a section of the stem attaching it to the vine had died off. Unfortunately, it wasn't quite ripe yet.


The last of the Spring-sown carrots and possibly the last of this year's artichokes. They will surely be missed.


Finally, the last of the spring-sown beets. It will be at least another month before the fall beets are ready to harvest.

State of Tomatoes

Yesterday, I spent a few hours cleaning up the back garden, which had become hopelessly overgrown and difficult to navigate. I pulled up my two Petit Gris melon vines and found several half-eaten orange-sized melons. Too bad we didn't get a chance to taste them this year. It seems every summer, there's always at least one veg variety that is a total failure.

I also ripped out my beans and trimmed up my tomato plants. While the tomatoes have been slow to ripen this year, we should still get a decent crop if the weather stays warm in September. The plants have a ton of green fruit left (the San Marzanos on the left are prolific) and we should get our first bulk harvest of ripe tomatoes today.


My Gold Medal and Brandywine (Sudduth's Strain) tomatoes have been slower to mature then the purples I'm growing this year. However, the fruit are enormous and have resisted cracking.

An Early August Harvest

I won't say too much about this week's harvest. The tomatoes are still coming in slowly (annoying) and the corn harvest has been fantastic this year, despite our minor raccoon setback.

Homegrown corn, when picked at the absolute right moment and cooked soon after, is a completely different vegetable from what you get at the supermarket and even at the farmer's market in my opinion. For this reason, I will do battle with every insect and rodent to grow it each year.


We picked our first years of Ruby Queen corn this week. This is my first time growing this variety and I'm happy to report it is incredibly sweet and tender - definitely one I will grow again.

And here is some of the other things we picked this week:








I can't wait to see what all of you are harvesting this week!