Garden Update July 20th

Well it was crazy hot this week and I needed to water a lot!  But the garden is doing fantastic.  I've got 2 new planters for more herbs.  I have been growing clippings from the original herbs and will plant them there.  The clippings are in spice jars on the kitchen sink window sill.  They are rooting well.  The mint especially.I have also been rooting a tomato clipping.  I pulled off a large sucker the other day and decided to try and keep it and see what happens.

 The radishes were the first veggie to harvest.  There are still a couple left in the garden and they are going to seed.  I plan to harvest these today though.  I will probably plant some lettuce or spinach in this space.

 The beets are growing great. They are probably too crowded though and should have really thinned them more than I did.  the leaves are huge.  The actual beets are coming along and should be harvested soon.  They are about 1.5 inches in diameter now.

The celery greens are growing large but they still have a far way to go before I can harvest these.  I'm hoping to harvest some baby carrots in before our vacation at the start of august. This will also help thin the carrots even more.  The parsnips are also staring to grow their greens.  Not really sure how these are going to turn out as they are apparently a 2 year crop we'll see.

The egg plants are starting to form.  There are about 3 of them now and growing visibly each day.

The three tomato plants are very tall.  One is so tall that it is way above the round tomato cage.  I will have to get some large bamboo stakes to support it.  There are ripe grape tomatoes now :).  One of my gardening pet peeves is the fact that by the time there are enough ripe tomatoes the cilantro is already bolting which makes salsa making difficult :(.

 This is the second row of radishes that I sowed about 3 weeks ago.  Can't wait for them to harvest.  As you can see there are some bugs eating the leaves a little but they seem to be doing ok.  The beets that I planted at the same time are having a little bit of difficultly.  About half of the row has sprouted and leaves are growing but there is a big spot in the middle of the row where nothing came up :(.

The cherry peppers are starting to turn colour to red.  And a new batch of fruit is starting to form higher up on the plant.  There are a ton of cajun bell peppers.  As I've said previously this is my first year growing this variety so I am excited to see what they will be like. 

The banana peppers are huge and there are about 8 on each plant right now and lots more flowers.  We plan to pickle these like the subway hot peppers.  I'll do a post on this when I do it.  As you can see on the right below the cayenne pepper plants and big and full.  There are many peppers growing but they are hard to see.  I hope to make hot sauce out of these when I get enough.  Looking for a good recipe, if anyone has one please post a link below :)

The habaneros have finally grown fruit.  They are small yet but it's exciting that they are coming along. Also below are the bell peppers.  I chose the early red variety this year and love that the fruit are so big already.  Can't wait for fresh red bell peppers.

I didn't expect the broccoli this early but there are about 3 of the plants growing nice heads in the centre.  I have to keep a very close eye on this so that it doesn't bolt in this heat but I'm going to let the heads get a little larger before I cut them.  If you cut the central head you are supposed to get side shoot heads growing afterwards.  I LOVE BROCCOLI!  I also noticed that the snow peas are producing fruit.  I was afraid that I wasn't going to get any snow peas because the plant was being taken over by the broccoli, brussel sprouts and cucumbers.  But they seem to be growing even if it is slowly. There are about 5 pea pods right now.

 The cucumber plants are growing so fast.  I feel like last year I had full cucumbers by now but at least they are starting to form and I remember how fast they grow.  Below is the largest one I have so far.

So that's an update on my garden.  I'm really enjoying my new raised beds and extra space from last year.