Garden Harvest as of July 2014

I have been harvesting pounds of tomatoes for the last two weeks. The tomatoes started ripening around the middle of July.
The Tomatoes I am currently harvesting were transplanted at the beginning of May, while the other half of the Tomato garden was planted at the beginning of June.
The later Tomatoes will start putting off at the beginning of August. It seems Tomatoes take five months of growth before they start putting off fruit.

Here are some of the photos of the Tomato harvest...

07/17/14 Harvest

07/25/14 Harvest

07/27/14 Harvest

07/29/14 tomato harvest

07/29/14 harvest

07/31/14 harvest

The Cucumbers were sown at the beginning of May, and they are finally producing during the middle of July. I probably planted over 400 Cucumber seeds, only one third put off Plants while a quarter are producing Fruit due to location of plants (shady). I have already harvested many cucumbers this week alone. I expect them to put off for another month and a half, which may equate to 80-100 Cucumber fruits.

Here are the photos of Cucumber harvests...

07/25/14 Harvest

07/25/14 Harvest

The Greens (lettuces, spinach, and kale) were sown at the beginning of April and after a month I began to harvest 2 lbs of greens every week for two months. Because the greens are growing at my Grandparent's house, I am unable to harvest everyday, and because I did not harvest regularly the greens got old and bitter after two months. I was still able to harvest up until two weeks ago, so I am satisfied. I perhaps spent $12 for greens and got back $40 worth.
After the ground dries I will be tilling to plant more greens for a Fall harvest. I will sow them at the beginning of August, and begin to harvest by September. The greens will die out around October.

Here are photos of the first Lettuce harvests...

I am saddened by the progress of the Squash. I have always had success with the Zucchini and Yellow Squash. I transplanted them at the beginning of May, and I certainly expected to harvest much more than I have, especially since there was a Gigantic Zucchini plant. Here are some photos of the Squash harvest so far...

07/10/14 Harvest

Black eyed pea harvest...

07/29/14 Harvest

I will be harvesting Cantaloupe and pumpkin fruits in the next month or so, around September or October. In my "progress" video I show you the eight cantaloupe fruits, butternut squash and pumpkins growing in my compost bins. Here are a few photos of them...

butternut

eight cantaloupe

cantaloupe 8

cantaloupe 7

cantaloupe 6

pumpkin1

pumpkin 2

pumpkins 3 and 4

Some pictures of other fruits harvested...

Collection of Floral Photography 2014

I have been taking many pictures of my gardens, and you can see much of my vegetable garden photos at my blog. But I wanted to highlight some of the floral photography I have been taking, as they get out-shined by my garden harvest photos.
Enjoy~

Bee Balm




Dahlia 





 

Purple Iris



Tulips










 Zinnia 

Hibiscus

Petunia

 
 

Hemerocallis fulva



 Albizia Julibrissin (Mimosa) 

Sunflowers 

 


Phlox 

Cosmos 

Cleome hassleriana

 

Lysimachia Clethroides

Impatiens Walleriana

Butterfly Bush

Yarrow

Progress on Cantaloupe & Pumpkin in compost (video)

Tomatoes harvest & hundreds of tomatoes ripening

The greens are in their final stages. After several months, the remaining leaves are bitter and have bug markings. This video here is from one of my last lettuce harvests.

The tomatoes and cucumbers are fruiting. Seems odd to grow lettuce for months without using your own cucumbers and tomatoes, then when your tomatoes and cucumbers do come on, the greens are already dying out! 

Well, I will be sowing new lettuce, kale, and spinach seed in the upcoming days. The greens will take less than a month for me to harvest them again, and I will still be harvesting tomatoes and cucumbers by that point--so I will be making many salads with all my own ingredients (with the exception of avocado).

After several weeks without rain, many of the plants stalled. Although I watered my pepper, sweet potato, and melon plants everyday-- my squash, cucumber, tomatoes, corn, and beans did not get rain for weeks. Last night was a soaking rain shower-- so my tomatoes and many other fruits may have started fruiting or ripening much sooner.

The yellow squash have been producing as well. The peppers and cucumbers are putting off but slow growing.

First of the yellow squash

Celebrity variety, pinkish color

Celebrity variety

Rutger variety

Here are the first tomatoes to be harvested from the garden. Considering I planted nearly 200 Tomato plants last year and received over 200 lbs of tomatoes, this year I expect over 300 lbs of tomatoes from the 300 Tomato Plants we have growing.

 On a final note, be on the look out for more posts on garden harvests. Within the next 7-14 days, I will be harvesting pounds of free food from the garden.

Pepper & Lettuce harvest, Cantaloupe & Tomato fruiting (July 7th, 2014 Garden Update)

At the beginning of April, I planted several varieties of Lettuce, Spinach, and Kale. Within a month I was harvesting greens. Now that it has been several months, the lettuce and greens are aging-- it is time to sow a second Lettuce crop for a Fall harvest.
We recently purchased a large bag of Kale seed, several large packets of Salad Bowl and Grand Rapids Lettuce.In the upcoming weeks, we will be planting our greens, perhaps Broccoli and other root vegetables.

At this time, we are harvesting Peppers. We have three rows of Peppers, approximately 100 Pepper plants.
The peppers in the photo below are the Cowhorn hot pepper (long skinny pepper) and the Cubanelle sweet pepper (light green wide peppers).

Hot & Sweet peppers

The tomato plants are fruiting. I actually documented the Tomato garden in the video here, called "Tomato Army". Check out the other garden tour videos: garden 2 of 4 and garden 3 of 4.

I am excited about my Cantaloupe growing as well. It is growing larger by the day. This was a volunteer Cantaloupe that popped up in my Strawberry bed.

Cantaloupe growing in Strawberry bed

Another volunteer plant, the Pumpkin in my compost (picture below), is so large at this point it is taking up the space of my entire Compost bin. Volunteer plants do so much better in terms of quick growth, compared to plants you personally sowed from seed.

Pumpkin growing in Compost

At the second garden, my Cantaloupe and Watermelon plants are vining healthy. Some are flowering. Besides the cantaloupe in the strawberry bed, I'm not sure I will have any other melons this year. I have such a struggle with the conditions of melons. They're high maintenance--plenty of sunlight, plenty of water, fertile, loose, sandy soil.

100 Cantaloupe & Watermelon plants

Cantaloupe 2-3 ft long / got my shoes here

Row of Cantaloupe

Watermelon

Here are some photos of Bee Balm at my Grandmothers...there contains no smell to them, but they're quite lovely~

 Can you see the hummingbird in this picture? She or he is quite camouflaged in this photo. My Grandma finally bought a hummingbird feeder, so I stand like a statue around the feeder to snap a photo of these guys...