Things sure get busy in the garden this time of year. There’s a lot of harvest happening! I’ve been so pressed for time that I decided to condense two months into one post.
Every month I’m getting closer to my goal of year-round food harvesting from the garden. I’m going to start including a list in each post of what I harvested.
There were a lot of observations and lists in my garden journal these past two months. Here are the journal entry summaries for June and July.
Journal Entries June
1st Week of June
Spring had been so dry, it felt great to finally get a deep soaking rain on the fourth of June. We had been hand-watering all of the potted plant and setting sprinklers for the garden beds.
Saturday, the 5th, I gathered a good number of green peppers, jalapenos, and cherry tomatoes. New blossoms continued to come on, even as the older fruit matured.
I froze most of the peppers and tomatoes. Freezing is a quick preservation method for when you have a lot to put up. You can learn more about freezing peppers by reading: How to Freeze Peppers: 2 Methods, and how I freeze tomatoes: How to Freeze Tomatoes for Canning.
The Seminole pumpkins continued to thrive. Their combination of dark green leaves with white variations, and the pop of bright yellow blossoms in the morning create a beautiful groundcover. Early in the month, there were several small fruits already growing on the vines and one or two new fruits continued to show up every few days.
2nd Week of June
The roselles started blossoming this month too. They usually bloom in the fall as the days shorten. Perhaps because they started growing so early in the year, the late spring sunlight hours prompted their blooms. I’ll harvest their seeds later this summer and track their growth patterns over the next several years.
My purple coneflower finally blossomed after 14 months! The gorgeous flowers were well worth the wait. I plan to save the seeds, grow more, and eventually explore the medicinal uses of this herb.
Three of the pineapples produced fruit this year. They stayed small and green throughout the month of June.
Rain showers started coming in almost every afternoon. It finally felt like the rainy season was here. The temperature continued to go up too, creating a steamy summer environment that most of our plants love.
3rd Week of June
The blackberries continued in full production mode. I picked 2-3 cups of fruit every other day. On June 24th, I picked a full quart of them.
I started drying leaves from the roselle, lemon balm, and peppermint for my evening teas. A few of the roselle calyxes were ready to harvest and I’ve been putting them in the freezer. Five of the roselle calyxes was a perfect amount to make a delicious cup of tea. It was tangy, but a bit of local honey balanced the flavor. Roselle makes a beautiful pink tea.
The weeds and pests started showing up in abundance with our summer weather. An abundance of leaf miners in our citrus, aphids in the roselles, and downy mildew in the butternut squash kept me on my toes. I’ve been using Neem oil or an insecticidal soap for organic disease and pest controls.
4th Week of June
A thunderstorm knocked over some of the roselle plants. I used string to hold them up in their raised bed. I also moved the potted trees around to give them more space to branch out. Our cement patio looks more like an orchard every month!
Harvest Summary June 2021
Food Harvested
- Blackberries
- Cherry tomatoes
- Green bell peppers
- Jalapeno peppers
- Lettuce greens and sweet potato leaves to add to sandwiches
- 1 Butternut squash (curing in pantry)
- 2 Seminole pumpkin (also curing in pantry)
- Herbs: peppermint, lemon balm, roselle leaves
- Roselle calyxes
- One last handful of Blue Lake green beans
Seeds Saved
- Jalapeno peppers
- Butternut squash
- Seminole pumpkin
- Flowers: candy tuft, zinnia, marigold, and Chinese forget-me-nots
Journal Entries July
July got even hotter and steamier than June. The tomatoes stopped blossoming, but other plants such as the pumpkins and blackberries thrived.
1st Week of July
Pumpkin worm devastation! Seemingly overnight, they ate almost 1/3 of my Seminole pumpkin leaves. It looked like thousands of 1-inch long green worms hanging from threads and crawling across leaves. I took quick action with some BT, then a couple of days later, removed the damaged vines. The University of Florida has an informative article on one of their Featured Creatures pages. Lesson learned! In the future, I’ll watch closer for these pumpkin/melon worms and pre-treat with BT.
I took some time on the weekend after the 4th to thin out the passionfruit vines. They were getting too thick around the blackberries. Space is getting tight in our little back yard garden. I knew I had planted them too close, and purposely planned to thin them out as they grew.
2nd Week of July
I signed up for a class at our county Extension Service Agency. It was a food plant propagating class to teach the community different ways to grow food, especially foods that tolerate our summer weather. From seeds, to stems, to roots, here is a list of what my classmates and I saved from their demonstration gardens and were able to take home with us:
Seeds
- Papaya
- Black pigeon peas
Stems/Branches
- Okinawa spinach
- Syrian spinach
- Sweet potato
- Cranberry hibiscus
- Edible hibiscus
- Chocolate mint
- Spearmint
- African blue basil
- Holy basil
- Sugar cane
- Yuca
- Chaya
- Black mulberry
- Jelly Fig
Roots/Rhizomes
- Lemon grass
- Ginger
- Cardamom
I am so excited to grow all of these Florida-friendly foods! In the hands-on class we actually harvested seeds from pods and fruits, cut stems and divided roots. We were also taught how to plant them and use them. The staff encouraged us to share what we learned with friends and neighbors, and share cuttings with others too. I absolutely love our county extension office and its staff. They are there for you! Reach out to them with all of your gardening (food or ornamental) needs. If you’re interested in Florida gardening, their Blog Directory is a great resource.
3rd Week of July
The passionfruit finally blossomed!
The blackberries and peppers started slowing down fruit production. There were several dry days in a row, and I had to hand-water again for a few evenings. The potted plants dry out fast in the summer heat if the regular afternoon rains don’t come through.
The Seminole pumpkins started getting downy mildew. They were still growing and blossoming, but only sent up male flowers.
It cooled off to the mid 80’s this week and the cherry tomatoes started blossoming. However, I think it will get too hot again before they set fruit.
We picked our first pineapple. It was small, but so sweet and juicy!
Everything I had brought home from my propagation class continued to grow. The pigeon peas sprouted, and the basil plants started blossoming.
4th Week of July
After over a week of almost no measurable rain, we finally got a good 20 minutes downpour. It’s so unusual to go so long without rain during the summer. It’s a much dryer season this year.
The humidity brought on more fungal diseases such as Septoria leaf spot, powdery mildew and downy mildew. I stopped treating the Seminole pumpkins for diseases. The fruits were almost ripe and the vines were dying off naturally. On the last day of the month, I harvested the last 3 pumpkins and pulled out about half the vines. The health of the remaining vines the next few weeks will determine if I continue growing them, or pull out everything to start over fresh next season.
The sweet potatoes are starting to grow fast now. They just love the heat. I noticed that something is eating small holes in some of their leaves. I’ll watch close for pests, but so far, the damage is acceptably small.
Harvest Summary July 2021
Food Harvested
- Blackberries
- Bell peppers
- Jalapeno peppers
- 9 Seminole pumpkins
- 1 Butternut squash
- 3 pineapples
- Herbs: peppermint for tea
- Sweet potato leaves to mix into a salad
Seeds Saved
- Jalapeno
- Lemon basil
Gardening Resources
Here are some great gardening resources for your summer garden:
University of Florida IFAS Extension
Grow Seminole Pumpkin by Pete Kanaris GreenDreams TV
The garden will be busy in August. I have all those propagated plants from my class to either pot up in larger containers or plant in the garden. The peppers are getting their third blossoming season started, and I’m leaving a lot of room for the sweet potatoes to grow. Plus, there’s so much more growing out there, I’ll have lots to tell you about soon!
Until then, happy gardening!
Alisa
[…] December 1st, I found a small fig growing on one of my fig trees. It surprised me because the three trees I’d been growing from cuttings had been potted for only about five months. I’d read it takes up to two years for them to start producing fruit. I felt very fortunate to have received such healthy cuttings. You can read more about how I got these fig cuttings in my post: Garden Journal June/July 2021. […]