The zucchini are growing as big as Popeye's arms before we even see them hiding under those big leaves, and when we think we've found every last one, my husband comes in and plunks down another brick-bat on the table. Zucchini bread. Lots and lots of zucchini bread!
We're gathering enough green beans for dinner every few nights, too, which is nice. Those suckers produce long and hard. I love it. I planted three phases of green beans, and all three are now producing. They are all supposed to be bush beans, but a couple heirlooms decided to go rogue and grow vines, so I popped some sticks in the ground to support them. I'm glad they did, because its actually taught me that I prefer harvesting green beans from vines versus crouching down searching for them under the leaves of the bush variety. They also seem to grow straighter on the vine which is nice.
Believe it or not, we've harvested our first pumpkin! This little beauty came out of the garden a couple days ago and will stay in the green house for 10 days to "cure." I've learned that pumpkins need 10-14 days in high heat with humidity to get a harder shell that will help them last longer through the winter! Although I'll be making this one into a pie soon, I wanted to test out the process for the rest of the pumpkins we'll be getting. Which will be A LOT... see next photo... We've counted about two-dozen pumpkins. Mostly large Jack-O-Lantern variety, but a few sugar pumpkins for baking, too.
I can't believe I grew corn. I never thought I'd have the room, or that it would grow well here in the northwest. But, it did! This variety was actually supposed to be grown in containers on a deck for people with less room, so it is only supposed to grow 5-feet high and produce 2-3 ears per stalk. Some of ours have reached 6-feet, and out of the 20 that came up (from 30 seeds planted), over half of them have two ears of corn at this time! That's 26 ears of sweet delicious gold that will be eaten soon!
I've gotten many of my banana peppers (pickled those bad boys right away!), and Serrano chilis (can you say Fresh Salsa?!), but I'm still hoping these bell peppers will get bigger and turn the yellow and red colors I ordered. I've always wanted to grow peppers, too, and never thought they'd do well here, but they really did. And the ones in containers did better than the ones in the ground, by far! Mental note.
These are three of my tomato plants that are full of fruit right now. I've never in my life had this many tomatoes successfully grow. Now if they'd just turn RED!
Here are all my new areas so far... The top picture is onion starts and onion seeds - both walla walla. I've learned that if you want the really large globes like you can buy in the market, you want to plant your onions in the fall and let them "over winter." I'm excited to try it! The top picture also shows a bit of the bed where I've started collards and turnips. They are both popping up, but you can barely see it.
The second picture shows napa cabbage, traditional cabbage and broccoli starts. Next to the napa I've also planted kale, radishes and spinach!
I still need to plant basil, lettuce, dill, carrots, and peas. But those will be a little later on. I've also learned that if you want really big garlic you plant it in the fall, cover the beds with straw and let it pop up with the crocus in January! So when the corn comes out this fall I'll be plowing that section under and planting garlic. About mid-October.
What a great learning experience it has been to plant a larger garden this summer! It has been satisfying to the Nth degree. And it has also led me to my new-found passion for CANNING! More on that in another blog...
