It's a shame that the last days of summer are upon us but August has been pretty good to the garden. Despite the fact that it has been exceptionally dry, the weather has been warm and sunny so with diligent watering our crops have thrived.
Our garden:
Our cantaloupe are doing very well. We have quite a few small melons but nothing is ready to pick yet. When they become heavy for their size, are very fragrant, and the skin beneath the webbing is orange or golden in color they are ready to pick.
The carrots are continuing to grow but are becoming increasingly hard to pull out of the ground. I picked some last week and they were delicious.
Our green onions and chives are doing great still. I picked a green onion last week and used it in a stir fry, it had a very nice mild oniony flavor.
We have a few small yellow squash that should be ready to pick soon.
We have many varieties of peppers and each plant has produced one or two peppers so far. A fellow gardener pointed out that our sunflower is shading some of our plants so that is probably why they haven't done as well as they could have.
Our lettuce bolted because we didn't pick the leaves fast enough in this hot weather. It's growing season is probably over now.
The sweet basil is doing fantastic! I picked a bunch last week.
Our cilantro is still growing and smells wonderful.
Unfortunately our deer tongue lettuce bolted as well.
Our tomato plans are doing incredible! I didn't see any ripe tomatoes while I was there but there are a lot of green ones on every plant. I planted a variety of tomatoes that will not all turn red when ripe. There are two purple tomato plants, a yellow tomato plant, and one red cherry tomato plant.
Our garden on 8/17/2011
As I wandered around the garden plots I couldn't help but notice other gardener's healthy vegetable plants! I took some pictures to document what has done well in their gardens so maybe next summer we can plant these unique and bountiful crops.
Here's a peek at some fellow gardener's successes:
A lot of gardeners chose to plant beautiful flowers in between their crops.
Cabbages as big as my head are in many gardens. They are a very interesting plant!
I found only one eggplant crop but there were at least 3 eggplants ready to be picked!
Onions do very well here.
Huge pumpkins growing in the garden next to ours.
Butternut squash is so wonderful, I think we should definitely plant one of these next summer.
A big watermelon.
Beets are doing really well in every garden I have seen. They are delicious when peeled and roasted in the oven with a little oil and salt. They would be a very neat addition to our garden.
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