summer

What to Grow in a Summer Garden

Not sure what to grow in a summer garden? The bright sun and warm temperatures of summer are perfect for certain plants and herbs, find out what to grow in a summer garden!

Summer Garden Season

The summer garden season is here, and we can’t wait to bite into some fresh, home grown produce! The variety of vegetables that can be grown in the summer garden is what keeps many gardeners growing and what entices new gardeners to try their hand at growing. The combination of hot weather and (hopefully) occasional rain makes summer a perfect time to grow.

While two of the most popular summer garden favorites are tomatoes and cucumbers, there are many other vegetables and fruits that can round out the summer garden. They can help you enjoy an organic, nutrient-rich, low-cost diet all summer. In fact, during our garden bed installations this spring, I was very surprised at the number of people who didn’t like tomatoes. And if you don’t like the taste of something, you certainly shouldn’t grow it! Instead, plant some of these other easy-to-grow summer garden foods.

What to Grow in a Summer Garden

Beans

There are many varieties of bean to choose from, green beans (aka string beans or snap beans) are the most popular. Select a bush variety to grow in containers or small garden spaces. Runners or pole beans to grow well in gardens that have space for trellises or teepees. (Find out how to construct a bean teepee in 5 minutes!) Beans are also perfect for getting kids into the garden. They love to harvest beans and eat them on the spot.

Corn

So easy to grow and prepare, corn grows on tall stalks but require very little vertical space. Corn will produce two ears per stalk, and the ears are great for grilling or boiling. And though you may be used to seeing corn grown in fields and row gardens, they are just as happy to grow in a raised bed or container!

Blueberries

Though not a plant you’d start and grow in a raised bed, blueberries in the summer garden add a burst of color and taste of tart sweetness. Blueberry bushes can be grown in-ground (like a flower bed) or in containers. They prefer moist, acidic soil and a location that offers them a little shade from the afternoon sun. Plant different varieties that ripen at different times so you can enjoy fresh blueberries all summer. (Try these blueberry covers for keeping birds and other blueberry lovers at bay.)

Eggplant

The star of several Italian recipes, eggplant is easy to grow and will add color to both your summer garden and your plate. Plant in a sunny location (in-ground or in a container) but not in the same location as it was grown in last year. If you live in a warmer climate, eggplant will continue to grow into the fall, so don’t take it up too quickly!

Melons

What is summer without slices of juicy watermelon, cantaloupe or honeydew? It’s a great choice to plant and grow with kids as a summer gardening project. Choose a variety based on the amount of garden space you have. Compact plants won’t require as much growing space as traditional varieties, but will produce the same juicy melons. We grow our melons in a south-facing flower bed. This gives them plenty of room to spread out, and they run underneath our blueberry bushes, so they’re not in the way.

Okra

Here’s a heat loving vegetable that is the perfect tall plant to grow in a summer garden. Upright plants don’t take up much space and produce large yellow flowers before producing okra pods. Harvest when pods are 4-5 inches long and add to soups, stews and gumbo. Slice crosswise, dredge in cornmeal and fry until golden brown for a southern favorite. Okra is also incredibly easy to freeze for later use.

Peppers

Peppers not only produce flavorful heat, they grow best in the hot summer. The hotter the better, making them ideal for a summer garden. Easy care plants grow equally well in-ground or in containers.

Now you know what to grow in a summer garden! (And take some risks and grow something you’ve never tried before.) So take up what is no longer producing from your early spring garden, and get some of these fresh summer veggies growing. These heat loving plants should take your garden into the early fall (if you live in a warmer climate). I’d love to know what you enjoy growing in the summer garden! Have a great week and happy gardening!

by Courtney 3 Comments

When to Harvest Beans (It’s so easy!)

As with many things in life… bigger isn’t always better. This rings true for many things in the garden, beans included. I wish I would have known this tidbit when I first started. I waited to pick zucchini until they were the size of my arm. Those “arm-sized” zucchini also came with seeds the size of jellybeans. (side note: those big zucchinis aren’t total wastes… they’re great shredded up in zucchini bread!)

While the kid in me still gawks at those quirky enormous pumpkins and other overgrown vegetables, the truth is most large vegetables don’t make for very good eating. The larger a vegetable grows, the tougher it can be, and who wants to chew a green bean or piece of okra for several minutes? Not me.

Young and tender are the key words for most veggies in your summer garden. And those bush or pole beans you’ve been growing are no exception. Once you notice those tiny beans appearing, keep your eye on them. They grow quickly and can soon become too big.

What to Look For:

You want lean but full beans that are firm to the touch. Avoid waiting too long to pick when the seeds inside are bulging and the bean has become stringy. The beans below are too large and you can tell the seeds inside are big as well.

Look for a nice lean bean. It should be firm (not soft and squishy) but also not have overgrown seeds like the beans above. The bean below is ready to be picked. Notice the uniform thickness? Let’s hope it makes it inside before it’s eaten! The little gardeners around here like to pick off the beans and munch them on the spot. There’s nothing like getting a little fiber in between jumps on the trampoline. They eat many more vegetables straight out of the dirt or off the plant than they will on their plates at the dinner table. So, I’m not going to complain too much about their garden grazing.

Picking the beans is easy as pie. Simply grasp the top of the bean and notice the little stem that connects the bean to the main vine, then simply break off the bean at the stem. You don’t want to damage the vine, so watch out that you don’t pull too hard on the bean before it’s truly been broken off. Fill up a bowl (or shirt) full of these babies and cook them up for dinner. There’s a hundred different ways to prepare fresh green beans, and I’ll be sharing our sautéed green bean recipe later this week. These beans are just too tender to boil!If you’re thinking about what beans to plant next year, these particular beans are Kentucky Wonder Pole Beans, and we’ve been pleased at how well they’ve grown The plants shot right up our bean teepees, which created a lovely vertical element to our garden, and not only are they producing beans, but since the area at the bottom of the teepee is shaded, I’ve planted spinach there. I love testing out ways to combine planting areas.

I’d love to know what type of beans you prefer to grow. Our lack of garden space makes pole beans the obvious choice, but I love hearing about what works for others. Happy Gardening!

by Courtney 1 Comment

Kitchen Garden Update

Are you in full-on, worm crushing, squirrel chasing summer garden mode? Well we certainly are around here. This is an absolutely fabulous time of year for appreciating how much work goes into gardening (and farming for that matter). I know this isn’t true for everyone, but having my hands in the cool dirt and being a part of growing beautiful and fruitful things from a tiny seed keeps me in awe of the complexity of our world and its Creator. What a blessing to be a part of growing good things!

I posted earlier in the spring about our garden plans, what we were going to plant and where. For the most part, we have stuck to those plans, but we’ve had a few hiccups along the way. Frankly, that’s how gardening (and life goes). Here’s the good and the bad news of our garden so far this year. Let’s start with the bad, because I just like to get that out of the way first.

Garden Troubles

Worms love kale too! Clearly, the healthiest worms on the planet are living in our garden. We left for a weekend trip, and came back to kale stems, but no leaves. Glad I could provide such a nutritious meal.
The squash vine borers have been relentless this season. I was able to harvest two zucchini (and zero squash) before those ruthless pests completely destroyed my plants. Once they’re done turning the plants stem into mush, they literally get down in the soil and wait for next year. Sheesh. I’m taking some advice from You Bet Your Garden, and I’ll plant my squash and zucchini in a different spot next year and try the wipe down method mentioned here. I’ve also planted some butternut squash in the squash and zucchini’s place, which vine borers hate. Take that!

Garden Goodness

For those few garden mishaps this season, there have also been tasty developments. Using a heavier pruning technique, our tomatoes plants are bursting with fruit. The jellybean tomatoes especially have heavier fruit yields than years before. Our Cherokee Purple heirloom tomato plant (on the right) is still a slow grower, but that’s okay with us. We’re using some wildlife netting after the birds and squirrels started a buffet line on our first cluster or two of ripe tomatoes.
Exploding marigolds. They’re not really exploding per se, but wow! They started off as two small single flowers, and they’re trying to take over.
Successful Potato Tower. So far so good on my homemade potato tower. I tried it out this year, and the added dirt has now reached the top of the tower, so I’m just letting the plant grow now. I hope to post soon on how to create your own with just burlap and wire fencing. It’s a breeze.
Finally, my Pinterest experiment of growing a watermelon plant in a pot seems to be working! I’m actually pretty shocked, and so are my Floridian parents, who know that it takes a whole lot of space to grow watermelons. I actually have one watermelon the size of a softball on the vine already. We’ll see how it turns out.

Most everything in the garden seems to be faring well. The patio eggplant bush is full of small fruit; the pods on the okra plant will be ready to pick this week, and our bean teepees have vines all the way up. We’d love a little more rain here and there, but I know some folks in our country right now need a little less rain, so we’re praying for them and offering praise for what we’re given.

How is your spring/summer garden growing? I’d love to know what you’ve had success with and what hasn’t been so successful. Happy Gardening!

What to Grow in a Summer Garden

Summer Garden Season

What to Grow in a Summer Garden

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When to Harvest Beans (It’s so easy!)

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Kitchen Garden Update

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Summer Garden Season

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