Which veggies are you growing this year?
fine_gardening
| Posted in Southeast Gardening on
Tell us how your veggie garden is faring right now! Growing anything new from last year? Is anything struggling? What are you most excited to harvest?
Replies
My zone 8a vegetable garden consists of raised beds made of galvanized troughs and large plastic containers repurposed from cattle supplement containers. I moved the garden from a very hot south facing site to an area next to a barn that receives adequate hours of sunlight but gets late morning and late evening shade. I have planted 8 varieties of tomatoes (all started from seed at home), several types of peppers, squash, some herbs, and a lot of flowers. I water almost daily if it has not rained.
All of the tomatoes produced some fruit but the Amelia has done the best. This good tasting tomato has a lot of disease resistance and produces large, red tomatoes that hold for several days after picking.
Heirlooms include Berkley Tie Dyed Pink, Carbon, Black Krim, and Black Cherry. These all produced but the heat this summer is stressing the heirlooms more than the Amelia hybrid.
Dwarf Sweet Sue is an excellent tasting yellow tomato that produced well but is also suffering from the daytime heat and our high night time temperatures which have been over 75 F for much of this month.
Chocolate pear and Brad's Atomic Grape produced prolifically but are quickly rotting on the vine if not picked daily.
I tried Nadapeno (a not hot jalapeno) this year and it is doing well. It isn't hot but maintains the good flavor of a jalapeno. Banana peppers, cayenne pepper, and Anaheims are doing well and seem unfazed by the heat.
The squash (which I planted late from seed) did not do well and I have already pulled them up.
The zinnias, sunflowers, tithonia, sages, dahlias, catmint, and African blue basil planted in the vegetable garden are all thriving and the pollinators are flocking to them in abundance.
Despite these issues this year, the garden is doing much better in its new location and I am looking forward to starting a fall garden soon.
We have a variety of tomatoes, potatoes, peppers, onions, basil and cucumbers. Essentially the makings for pasta sauce, pickles and dinner sides. A very simple garden but I have already gone through a case of canning jars and haven't made a dent with only 2 cucumber vines.
I've got some unique tomatoes I have never grown before. I've even tried some varieties that are pale yellow.