“For Vegetable Gardeners, It’s the Second Season”
I was just thinking about this today. My green beans are about done and was thinking of starting some new ones.
This year is just crazy. It is Aug. 1 and we are still waiting for our 1st red tomato. The peas I put in in May, are finishing up nicely. They should have been fried by now, but with the cooler weather, they made it OK. Squash is coming, but slowly. Canteloupe and luffa are just flowering, don’t see any fruits yet. It seems kinda funny to be putting in fall stuff when the summer stuff is still trying to produce. I might have to make a new space for fall plants.
I know, this weather is really crazy.. Right now, the jet stream is maintaining a trough all along the east coast and we are seeing little low pressure systems zipping up all the way to Maine.
>>>I might have to make a new space for fall plants.<<<
I took 1/4 of my closest garden to the house and planted it in wheat last fall, after harvesting the wheat, I tilled in the straw. I let the weeds just start to get going and tilled again, then a couple of weeks later tilled it and am now planting fall crops in that. I was going to get most of it planted last week, but got side-tracked with canning and drying, State Fair, Politicians, and stuff like that. So just a few minutes ago my wife and I finished planting 18 rows of Contender (heirloom) green beans (at 25’ rows, that’s 450’ total row length), 6 rows of spinach, and then need to go out after it cools down a bit and plant the turnips, kale, and more lettuce...
If my calculations are correct, I should get about two weeks of picking the green beans before earliest frost - I am allowing for 2 weeks earlier frost than usual. The beans take about 55 days and I can help that by keeping the water to them whenever they are close to needing it. Any beans left will be picked for next years seed.
My tomatoes just really started ripening (the Amish Paste tomatoes are coming on earliest)- picked about 3/4 of a 5 gallon pail last night, filled the dryer started picking off the dry ones just before we went out to plant.
My peppers are doing better than any I have had for years. I have been freezing and drying them, and if things keep up, I will probably can some too.
Since the weather turned hotter about 3 weeks ago, things that were just hanging on are really going great guns. I am going to be hard pressed to keep up with the preserving.
Hope you get some warmer weather there too. If you do, the crops will probably really jump.