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Corn, Page 5

Corn Stalks Beginning to Produce Silks

Corn is usually one of the last things to mature and start producing ears of corn that can be cooked or eaten raw.  The very first sign that I look for is the tassels.  Once the tassels are growing that means very soon silks should begin to grow from the stalk which is the start of every corn ear.

Just a couple of days ago I saw the first sign of silks and it just happened overnight.  It doesn’t take that long before they start growing and once they get going the ears will come faster than one would think.  Once they are a good size I will then start to peel back the husks that cover them in order to know when they are ripe enough. (more…)

Planted Some More Carrots and Picked First Pepper of the Season

I didn’t have to do much today because it started out raining and continued to rain throughout the morning and part of the afternoon.  When the weather cleared I decided on planting some more carrots.  Some seeds did not germinate when I first planted them so I placed seeds where plants did not grow.

It is common practice to grow carrots twice durring the season and this usually is done with two different rows.  I normally don’t plant carrots twice because one planting is usually enough.  This time not many seeds germinated and if I didn’t do another planting I would potentially have a low yield. (more…)

Pole Beans: The Next Vegetable to be Harvested

I went through the entire garden today and wanted to see if there were any other fruits or vegetables that might be ready for a small harvest.  I have been noticing that some of my tomatoes were beginning to ripen and they might soon be harvested in a week or less.

I also have onions that will probably be dug out of the ground and totes real soon.  Right now I am reaching the climax or busiest part of the garden season where many harvests will be coming at the same time. (more…)

The First of Hopefully Many Cucumbers

I have been working in the garden for the past week including this past weekend.  The weather has been hot which is great for many of my plants including tomatoes, melons, and cucumbers.  I have not picked any tomatoes as they have not started to turn red.  They should begin ripening at any time and can’t wait to harvest them.

Cucumbers on the other hand have been growing quite well along with zucchini and pumpkins that are coming along.  All my cucumber plants are now producing flowers and it is only a matter of time before I start picking many of them.  Today I happened to pick the first of many cucumbers. (more…)

Added Ropes to Bean Trellis and Placed Mulch Around Corn

This week I decided to add the ropes for my bean trellis and to finish them as quickly as possible.  Many of my bean plants had started grabbing on to each other and it became a pain to break them apart without damaging the vine.  They are very fragile and can easily break if handled incorrectly.

Having them climb up ropes has proved to be successful in the past years and is a great way to separate the plants and vines.  The ropes are also strong enough to support the amount of beans that could appear especially if you have a good harvest like I did last year. (more…)

Pumpkin, Zucchini, and Cucumber Vegetables Starting to Flower

Today is just more of an update on the garden since it has been at least a week since my last post.  This week has been crazily busy especially with all the rain and the weeds growing in the garden.  I have had to work in the garden most of the week trying to remove all the weeds that I could.

All I have left to weed would be the tomatoes and some other small areas.  I will begin mulching some plants which might include corn and maybe beans.  It all depends how much mulch I am able to collect this week. (more…)

Weeded Entire Garden and More Lettuce Picked

Just wanted to update you on what has been going on with my garden over the past week.  So far I have only been picking my black seeded Simpson lettuce at the moment which is a great iceberg type lettuce.  It The lettuce has been growing quite well and the leaves have grown to large sizes.

I am very happy about this because last season I didn’t grow any and I definitely missed out on their great flavor.  I still have not picked any of the ruby glow hybrid leaves yet, but they are not growing as fast as my iceberg lettuce.  Granted these are romaine type leaves and I will have to pick them differently than my iceberg type leaves. (more…)

Picked Some Strawberries This Week

One of the good things that happened this week was a harvesting of just a few strawberries.  I wasn’t sure if there were going to be many berries this season, but there was enough to have the first harvest.  Only a handful were picked and there are still plenty left on the plants.

The next harvest I am sure will occur sometime this week either tomorrow or sometime during the weekend.  Hopefully there will be many more than the first harvest.  The first is always a small amount, but the second or third time is when you reach the peak of strawberry picking season. (more…)

First Lettuce Harvest of the Season

Today was perfect for picking lettuce leaves especially after the rain we got this past week.  The cool weather also helped them and it showed when I started harvesting the plants and how big the leaves were.  They were similar in size to my spinach leaves that were picked last month.

I probably could have picked some leaves in mid to late May if I wanted to, but I wanted to make sure that the leaves got as big as they possibly could.  Most of the plants had large lettuce leaves which were the oldest and the first ones harvested. (more…)

Planted Corn, Carrots, and Bean Seeds in Garden

Now temperatures are in the high 70’s and the month of May is coming to an end I thought now would be a great time to start planting bean, corn, and carrot seeds into the garden.  I could have planted them earlier in the month, but I wanted to get most of my transplants into the ground first before growing these seeds.

The good news is that these plants do not need that much time to mature except for maybe corn.  Carrots do not need that much time to complete their roots and pole beans once they start getting flowers they are pretty much all set for the season. (more…)