Watermelons, Peppers, and Mowing Down the Garden.

Late Summer into Fall is harvest time and we're finally there. Last weekend I cut a watermelon that wasn't quite ripe. Today I found one that was. Picking a ripe one is tricky. They all look the same on the outside so you're left to thumping them and listening to how they sound. Supposedly the spot that touches the ground turns from white to yellow when they're ripe but that happened weeks ago. Some people say the vine starts to turn a little brown when they're ripe. That hasnt' happend at all. So I was left to thump them and listen for the one that went "plunk" instead of "plink". Not very scientific but it seemed to work.



These watermellons are "sugar babies". Smaller than the regular watermellon at about 12" in diameter. They are very sweet.

We also picked the peppers today. That half of my garden was used for all the leafy stuff that was done back in June. It's been pretty much forgotten since then except for me pulling a carrot to eat once in a while while I was out there working. The carrots are past their prime so all that was left to tend to on that half of the garden was the peppers. We picked them all today so I can mow that half down and not worry about it anymore.

We cut them up and freeze them in big chunks. Whenever we're making something that could use pepper, we pull a chunk out of the freezer, chop it up and throw it in the dish. We don't eat a lot of spicy food so this basket will probably last us until we harvest again next summer. There are several varietis of mild peppers here, mostly bell peppers. If we had waited a few more weeks, they would be all shades of yellow, orange, and red but I'm tired of dealing with them and green tastes just fine.

More good than bad.

Today the carrots are almost carrot sized.




I first noticed watermellons on the vines about a week ago. Now they're probably 6" across.





The tiny, sickly little pepper plants have more pepper than plant.





The celery looks just like the stuff in the store. I even used some in a pasta salad the other day. I plan to wrap them in paper soon for a couple of weeks to lighten the stalks and remove some of the bitter flavor.





The corn is as high as an elephant's eye today.





The cucumbers have cucumbers





The replacement tomatoes in the garden have a few tomatoes and even my hanging tomato has tomatoes.





And best of all, the Japanese Beetles keep dying.

Finally past the frost free date

Saturday was busy but Sunday was planting day. I've been waiting for May 15th for a long time. May 15th is our "Frost Free" date, supposedly the last day frost can happen. We actually haven't had a frost for a month or so.

I picked up a flat of plants. Two six-packs of green bell pepper plants, two six-packs of yellow bell pepper plants, two varieties of cucumbers for canning pickles, half a dozen regular tomatoes and half a dozen grape tomatoes, and 4 watermelon plants.




I've never seen chocolate peppers before and I like trying odd-ball stuff so I had to get them. Last year I had 4 tomato plants and we had 30X more tomatoes than we could use or give away. I only really want two plants this year but they come in packs of 4 or 6. To get two different varieties, I ended up with more than I can use.

It's looking like I'm going to run out of room in my garden. I've only planted just under half the space so far but I've got big plans, so I need to save space. I planted the peppers and tomatoes between the rows of lettuce, spinach, peas, and other greens. Since the leafy vegetables and peas will be done before the weather gets really warm, and tomatoes and peppers are subtropical plants that really take off in the heat of summer, I'm hoping the leafy stuff will be gone just as the tomatoes and peppers start to take over the space. Another garden experiment.




After planting a row of a dozen peppers and 5 tomatoes, my 8 year old daughter and I marked out, raked smooth, trenched, planted, and covered a row of silver queen sweet corn. I plan on doing 4 rows of corn. We were starting to mark out the second row when a storm blew up. We grabbed everything and ran for the shop. So now I've got a flat of cucumbers, watermelon, and the extra peppers and tomatoes sitting in the shop waiting to be planted.