The veggies and fruits in my garden and greenhouse are growing at warp speed during these smoking hot summer days. There's really nothing better than organic food you have cared for and grown yourself!
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The Greenhouse
It has been a while since I wrote my own garden journal. Summer is in full swing, and it's definitely showing.
As always during mid-summer, the greenhouse looks like a jungle. Plants are growing everywhere, and getting to the back of the tunnel is a real adventure.
Let me show you what's going on in the greenhouse at the moment.
Tomatoes
My 4 tomato plants are going really strong. Everywhere you look, you can see tomatoes growing. They come in all shapes and sizes. Some still need more time to grow, but there are plenty that are ready to be picked. Nothing more delicious than a homegrown tomato picked from a plant to eat as candy.
For a long time it looked like the Roma tomato plant was not going to be a success. But after a slow start, it picked up and started growing quite a lot of beautiful tomatoes. Still green, but I assume they'll start turning red pretty soon.
I don't have a clue about the name of the tomatoes in the pic below. It must be a variety I had growing last year, because this plant popped up spontaneously.
We harvested 2 ripe tomatoes yesterday, and they were delicious. Firm, but juicy. Yummy!
Although this Red Robin is not even 20cm high, it is just as productive as its bigger cousins - maybe even more. The small fruits are by far the sweetest tomatoes I ever tasted. It's impossible to pass the plant without picking some and enjoy them while I walk around my garden.
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The other plant that sprouted spontaneously has been a big mystery up until two weeks ago. It grew plenty of very big flowers, but they seemed to simply dry out instead of growing tomatoes. I had already given up hope and thought about removing it a couple of times. I'm so glad I didn't go through with that.
Then all of a sudden, some tomatoes started to appear. And not just any tomatoes....
As it turns out, the plant is a descendant of last year's Coeur de Boeuf plant. Back then, it was a bit of a failed experiment, since we had exactly 1 tomato in the entire season. I must admit: that one beefsteak tomato was delicious, but the fact that there was only one made me decide not to plant that variety again.
My garden decided otherwise...
Instead of only one, it's growing no less than 18 tomatoes at the moment. Most are still pretty small, and I really doubt the season will be long enough for them to ripen. But even if they don't, I can always pick them and put them in a box indoors until they are ready to be eaten.
It probably won't come as a surprise to you, but the 4th plant is a mystery too. When he popped up early in the season, he looked strong enough to relocate him and give him his own spot. It's the most productive plant in the greenhouse, and we've been able to pick quite a lot of the small tomatoes already. And it doesn't look like that will change any time soon.
Melons
I love watermelons. So even though last year wasn't a huge success, I decided to try it again this year. Once again, it turned out to be a bad idea.
The plant was off to a great start, and it didn't take long for the first watermelon to appear. However, the bigger the fruit grew, the more the plant languished. Just like last year, the plant simply died before the watermelon had a chance to grow big. So I picked it, and removed the plant. It wasn't its time yet, and since I've read that watermelons don't ripen after harvesting them, I assume it is a lost case.
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No more water melons in the garden next year...
Of the 2 cantaloupe plants, only one survived. But it has been doing good. Two Cantaloupes are almost ready to harvest, and two small ones appeared like two weeks ago. Yesterday, I clipped the ends of the vines so the plant can direct all it's energy towards the fruits, instead of growing even longer vines.
Sweet Potatoes
Two sweet potato varieties are growing in the greenhouse. A purple variant (Molokai) and a white one that originates from the ecofarm where I get most of my plants.
I had a third variety, but couldn't find a spot for it. (I really need a bigger greenhouse, lol.)
There's not a lot to tell about those plants, except that I really love how beautiful they look. Last year, we had a variety that grew small pink flowers, but no flowers in sight this year.
Cucumbers
I really like to grow cucumbers. They grow fast, and there's always plenty to harvest.
There are so many different varieties ...I try out some new ones every year. I always keep at least 1 'regular' cucumber plant, just in case the experiments will disappoint.
The brown cucumber - or Poona Kheera - is an Indian variety of which the skin darkens and turns brown.
The plant has already given us a lot of harvest. I can honestly say this was a successful experiment. The flesh of the Poona Kheera is more firm than that of a regular cucumber, and the taste is a little more subtle.
Another experiment is the Luffa/Loofah plant. What interested me most about this one is that - although the flower buds, flowers and young fruits can be eaten - you can leave the fruits on the plant to mature and dry out, after which you can turn them into a loofah sponge.
I really want this one to work (loofah sponges are the best), but I'm not sure it will.
To be honest, I didn't do a lot of research on it. I just assumed the plant would behave in the same way as a regular cucumber plant. Apparently, it doesn't.
Whereas the cucumber plants have provided an overload of fruits, nothing seemed to be growing on the Loofah plant yet. However, when I took a bit of a closer look last week, I noticed a lot of flower buds. They don't resemble cucumber flowers at all, but they were definitely flower buds. So I've been keeping my eye on them, expecting to see flowers appear pretty soon. For more than a week, nothing happened.
Up until yesterday...
It has been smoking hot here these last couple of days, so I was watering my plants in the greenhouse way after dark.
Suddenly I noticed that two of the flowers had opened. Finally!!
I went to check again in the morning, and they had closed again. This puzzles me... How will they ever be pollinated when they only open after dark???
I really need to do some reading on that.
Another new plant this year is the Maroon Cucumber. The plant finds its origins in Africa and I had never heard of it before, let alone tasted the fruits. But they looked so cute. The small fruits (app. 5 cm x 3 cm) grow on long vines, and they have the cutest spikes. Think small, green Kiwano fruits.
The plant and the fruits look absolutely beautiful. But that's about it. When I picked on and tasted it a couple of days ago, I was really disappointed. They taste like cucumbers, but the have an bitterness to them that makes that they taste awful. I guess I just need to pick them sooner... I've just read that the fruits develop that bitterness when they mature. Younger fruits it is, then.
Apparently, these fruits can be used to treat ailments of the stomach, so I'm definitely going to give them another try.
The gherkins can be prepared in many different ways - cooked, pickled, fried, stewed,..., so plenty of kitchen experiments coming up.
Sweet Peppers
Not a great success this year. I made the mistake of buying 2 mini bell pepper plants. One produced like 4 or 5 peppers, and the tiny plant died. The other one is growing exactly 2 small orange peppers... not even enough for a meal.
The one normal sweet pepper plant has grown a couple of peppers, and now I'm eagerly waiting for them to turn yellow, since I'm not very fond of green ones.
Yardlong (Asparagus) Beans
When I first came across this variety, I could hardly believe beans could grow up to 75 cm long. But then it happened right in front of me.
The vines can grow up to 4 m high. My greenhouse is only 3 m high, so the vines have started to grow sideways once they had reached the top.
I only have 4 plants in the greenhouse (the other 4 I had planted outside, but they didn't survive a slug attack), so harvest will be limited.
I check the plants every day... at least every two days, and since not a lot seemed to be happening, I almost gave up on them.
But when I walked into the greenhouse yesterday, there they were: 2 full-sized, purple Yardlong beans. I can't believe I missed those. I mean... they are right there at the front of the plant. Either I have been very inattentive, or they grew that big overnight (which I really doubt).
But anyway... they're there! Yippee!!
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We'll be picking them tomorrow. Just need to find the perfect dish to serve them.
Melon Pear
These last couple of years, melon pears have become one of my absolute favorites.
The plant is native to South America, but can do pretty good here in Belgium - provided it is warm enough, of course.
The fruits are juicy, and their taste is like a mix from cucumber and honeydew. Sóóóo delicious, and a perfect, healthy snack.
I once read that too high temperatures can slow down the development of the fruits. So, during the previous years, we always moved the plant outside when it was smoking hot, and back inside the greenhouse when temperatures dropped below 27°C. This year, however, the greenhouse is too crowded and the plant is too big to keep moving it around, so it has to stay inside the greenhouse.
The beautiful white with purple flowers have been on the plant for a couple of weeks, but there is still no sign of fruits.
I hope that keeping him inside wasn't a mistake, because melon pears are not sold in shops around here. If I don't get any harvest, I won't be eating my favorite fruit this year. Fingers crossed!
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This post was originally published on my MoestuinMomenten.be blog and cross-posted to Hive using the SteemPress WP plugin.
Original link: http://moestuinmomenten.be/greenhouse-goodies-august/