Wow, August is something else when it comes to gardening. It’s like boom, overnight – you go from having very little harvest to having so much harvest you can’t eat it all by yourself and have to start giving stuff away. And then by the end of the month you go back to very little harvest and the plants you do have left start getting really rough and more susceptible to disease, etc. Because I’m doing my gardening with organic methods and no pesticides, it’s been a whole learning experience for me. Some stuff has worked really well, while others have been a complete epic fail.
August 2nd
Here at the beginning of the month, things are really coming along swimmingly. The ginormous tomato we talked about in July is finally starting to slowly ripen and turn color. I think doing the garden setup in the way we did (raised boxes with gravel around them) was a stroke of genius, because it allows tomatoes that would ordinarily rot because they’re sitting directly on the ground adequate drainage so that they don’t. Nice.
My red peppers, although full sized, are super slow to start changing colors. Not even a hint of changing for weeks to come.
The muskmelon is almost full sized now, and just starting to develop the webbing on the outside. I’m quite pleased at the way the vine trained itself up the trellis, and the good job the trellis is doing supporting the melon.
Eggplant, now that it’s gotten going and set fruit, is giving me a steady supply of 6-8 eggplant each week. This has to be the most problem-free thing I’ve grown all year.
What I thought was kohlrabi when I planted it is most obviously cabbage at this point. With the exception of some bug-eaten outer leaves, this is doing great.
The sweet corn is just days away from harvest (you harvest it when the corn silk starts turning brown). For some reason, I expected the ears to get a bit bigger than this.
The blueberries have looked like they’re on the cusp of ripening for over a month now, but no such luck. I think I won’t have much blueberry output this first year since the bushes are getting established.
August 13th
It seems like overnight, the basil went from not growing at all to doubling in size. Not that I’m complaining, mind you. Perfect timing with all the tomatoes ripening now.
And there’s a real steady supply of Sungold tomatoes now. Good thing, since I’m putting them in just about everything. Plants are still looking good.
Cabbage is just about ready to harvest now that the center of the heads have filled out. These will be small heads, since I planted them 4 to a square foot because I thought they were kohlrabi.
I could have sworn I planted just one variety of eggplant, but I’m getting a couple of different shapes. This one is almost flat instead of round.
The last of the corn, ready to harvest. See how the silk is brown now?
The strawberry patch has really filled out, although it’s not producing much in the way of berries.
And now that I know rainbow chard regrows, I’ve been clipping it regularly. This is about a week’s worth of regrowth.
The muskmelon is almost completely webbed now, and is starting to slowly ripen.
My early girl tomato plant has been a steady producer for me, giving me very high yields starting very early on. And they have surprisingly good flavor, too.
You know, earlier when the zucchini first started producing, I contemplated getting a second plant next year for higher yields. Now that it’s producing regularly? I can see why people give away zucchini so readily.
The box in my garden I’ve nicknamed “tomatoes gone wild” is a jumbled mess of different varieties of tomatoes. I pulled all the vines outward so that I could actually have access to harvest them all once they ripen.
See? Still no hint of color change on those bell peppers.
August 14th
Big harvest day – I took the cabbage, corn, some zucchini and tomatoes. What am I going to do with 4 heads of cabbage (albeit small heads?)
August 23rd
My biggest harvest yet – for point of reference, this basket is 2-3′ long, 6 inches deep, about 18″ across.
August 27th
Another big harvest, mainly melon and ripe tomatoes.
Here’s a pic of the inside of the smaller of the muskmelons? Doesn’t it look sweet and juicy and delicious?
Stay tuned for September, which has us tearing out a bunch of tomatoes and squash plants (powdery mildew on the leaves has really done a number on the zucchini, and my tomatoes have been developing late blight), reconditioning the soil for fall and winter crops (one box will be nothing but garlic for next year, while another will be crops for winter (which I can harvest throughout winter by laying down a layer of straw to keep the soil warm enough to store the veggies and workable, and yet another will be lettuce and other greens.
