In the Garden: Our mid-summer check in

How is your vegetable garden coming along? This is the point in the growing season where we really need to be at the top of our game.

In addition to making sure our crops are getting enough water, it’s important to harvest everything at the right time. Producing vegetables requires a lot of energy from each plant. If we pick our veggies when they’re past their prime, that slows down the plant’s production. Although perhaps in the case of zucchini, that should be our goal!

I want to harvest as much produce as possible to eat fresh and to preserve and enjoy during the colder months of the year. It also means a lot to me to be able to donate fresh vegetables to the food bank.

So far, two of my heaviest producers are beans and zucchini. After our incredibly hot summer of 2021, I researched heat-tolerant pole bean varieties and came up with Fortex and Rattlesnake. I grew both of them last year and was particularly impressed with how productive Fortex was. I’m growing it again this year and am doing my best to pick the beans regularly.

We’ve grown Cocozelle zucchini since 2021 and it is quite the producer of tasty, striped fruits. Like most zucchini varieties, you really have to keep an eye on each one because they put on an amazing amount of growth in a single day. In addition to serving zucchini with summer meals, I grate raw zucchini and freeze 2-cup portions of it for future baking projects or for making savory zucchini patties.

This year, I planted onions from seeds, sets (those little bulbs you can purchase in garden centers) and plant starts. All of them have grown beautifully, which is great news for our onion-loving household. I grew onions each of those three ways because I wanted to compare the end result of each. My theory is that plants usually have the best and most consistent growth when you start them from seed right where they’re going to grow all season. We shall see if I’m right.

As usual, my husband, Bill, is growing several varieties of both hot and sweet peppers. They include Big Jim, Biquinho, Chili Pie, Early Jalapeno, Lemon Spice Jalapeno, Marconi Rosso, Nadapeno, Pot-a-peno and Pumpkin Spice. Despite that last variety’s name, I’ve been reassured that it refers to the mature color of the pepper rather than the flavor. Thank goodness for that.

This is also Bill’s second year of planting a grape tomato and sweet potato slips together in the same large container. I hate to sound negative but I didn’t think that was going to work last year. He pulled it off so we’re giving it a go again this year.

In the last few years, my slicing and saucing tomatoes were plagued by blossom-end rot. This disorder is caused by inconsistent or insufficient watering. Even though I thought the past years’ plants were getting enough moisture, I decided to give this year’s plants supplemental water early in the day and it has made all the difference.

I’ve been so excited about growing Ali Baba watermelons this summer and they are doing great. The melons need about 80 days to reach maturity and will produce 12- to 30-pound fruits. I’ve got 7 watermelons of varying sizes so it looks promising that I just might pull this off. I’ll let you know how it goes.

Susan Mulvihill is author of “The Vegetable Garden Problem Solver Handbook” and “The Vegetable Garden Pest Handbook.” She can be reached at Susan@SusansintheGarden.com. Watch Susan’s videos at youtube.com/susansinthegarden.