Shoda's Garden Update

I have been very very busy this summer with work and kids. Sorry I haven't posted my garden update sooner. We are getting a nice harvest of green beans, cucumbers (3 varieties so far), patty pan squash, zucchini, yellow crook neck squash and a few tomatoes.

My root vegetables are not doing much under the ground and the leafy things (like lettuce, spinach, chard) are doing very badly. I might need to feed the root veggies something better and shade the leafy things.


Here are the pictures...


The bed in the front was planted last and has edemame, midget melons and several varieties of winter squash. The tall mound of green in the back left is the green beans that are overflowing their trellis. The trellis behind the bench is the cucumbers.



Here is a closeup of the cucumbers. We have gotten cucumbers 12-14" long and you can see that there are several almost ready to harvest. These have done very well.




You can see that the tomato plants are loaded but not much ripening. Just too darn cool around here this summer.



We also planted a long skinny eggplant but the plant is producing two rounder ones instead. I think the plant was mis-marked. We will have to eat these pretty soon but are not quite sure when they will be ripe.

It is great fun harvesting the crops and the garden is doing very well this year. Overall, I am a very happy camper.

What a beautyful garden you have. I am so envious. Did you use rebars for your trellis?

You have done a wonderful job on your garden & everything looks so healthy. congrats

I can't advise on the eggplant being ripe, I just know every time I've grown them I wait too long before harvesting & the seeds are too well formed & we don't care for the texture.

Shoda: Your garden is gorgeous.

Here is what I found about eggplant:

"Their skin should be smooth and shiny, and their color, whether it be purple, white or green, should be vivid.The stem and cap, on either end of the eggplant, should be bright green in color. To test for the ripeness of an eggplant, gently press the skin with the pad of your thumb. If it springs back, the eggplant is ripe, while if an indentation remains, it
is not."

and

"Gently push with your thumb or forefinger. If the flesh gives slightly but then bounces back, it is ripe. If the indentation remains, it is overripe and the insides will be mushy. If there is no give, the eggplant was picked too early."

It looks great, Shoda. No wonder you were running out of energy and motivation to finish building it not too long ago. You took on a big project by yourself and did it, by golly!

Looking great, Shoda!! How are the edamame coming along?

Shoda, LOVELY! Well done!

Thanks for the information on the eggplant. I keep waiting for it to elongate but now I think I just have the wrong variety. I will check on it soon and let you know.

I planted the edamame pretty late. However, since we have a long growing season here I am not worried. Most of them came up and are about a 8" tall. No signs of buds yet but I think I might get some next month.

And actually... I have two more beds to build. One spot is open and I could build it at any time. Might start it soon so it will be ready for our fall/winter crops. (yes, we can grow year round in my area). The other bed is waiting for the strawberries to be done for the year so I can build them and transplant them into a SFG bed.

Good luck with that!!

I am curious about edamame and also chickpeas/garbanzos. I briefly looked into the chickpeas and it seems that they only bear a few seeds per pod (?).... not sure if a useful-sized harvest could be got in just a few squares.