Harvesting the Cucumbers

It's been a busy week in the Garden. A couple of days ago I was out picking Basil and harvesting Corn and today while tending to my cucumber plants, I found these two gems camouflaged near the bottom of the plant.

After finding some female flowers on one of the plants two weeks ago, I have been eagerly watching and hand pollinating more female flowers so I was surprised to find these two mature Cucumbers. Either these two grew overnight or more likely I just need to be more observant. 

Cucumbers can be a challenge when determining ripeness. You can tell they are ready by lightly squeezing and seeing if they are firm and by checking the skin is taunt. Another good indicator is if the skin is medium to dark green in color. In the case of both of these they were just on the cusp of being ready. So why did I pick them?

When a cucumber becomes over ripe, they quickly turn yellow and rapidly become inedible. This can happen very quickly so if you are unsure if they are quite ready, it's better in my opinion to pick them when they are slightly immature, rather than waiting until the last minute. All you experience is a slight loss in flavor, but that's better than losing the cucumber altogether.

With my powers of observation reawakened, I also spotted three more young Cucumbers on the vines packed close together and you can be sure I'll be watching out for these and others in the coming days.

Harvesting the Corn

A couple of weeks ago, I eagerly talked about the progress that our Corn had been making. First the male flower (The Tassel) had grown at the top of each stalk and then a week later the female flower's (The Ear) started to appear. My only real concern at the time was whether I had been a little too ambitious in planting the corn in just one row and as such cause problems with Pollination.

Corn is always best picked first thing in the morning while the air is cool and before the sun has had a chance to sap away some of the vitamins and minerals from the plant. You can also wait until dusk, especially if you plan to eat the Corn that evening but early mornings in my opinion are the way to go. To pick, simply reach down and while firmly holding the husk, gently twist until it comes away cleanly from the plant.

If done correctly, the husk should look similar to this picture. Note the remains of the Ear at the top.

 

 

As it turns out, my concerns around pollination were well justified. Of the six ears that eventually developed full term, five of them ended up suffering from an under developed top. Only the center most Husk (on the far left of the picture below) was fully developed. 

Lesson learned for next time, when I'll make a point of planting at least two rows to see if I can encourage cross pollination and better development.

Overall, I've very pleased with the way the corn came out, especially given that it was my first attempt. I also took the opportunity to pick some more Basil and while most of which is being gifted to some friends, there's going to be enough left over for us to try making Corn and Basil Cakes later on today. I'll let you know how that goes.

Harvesting the Soybeans

If I ever had to pick my favorite day to potter around the garden, I would have to pick Saturday's. The beginning of the weekend always holds such promise and it's great to be able to spend some time without worrying about the heat, finishing in time to get to work or getting carried away with another project.

With the rain we've had every evening here for the last few nights, it's been difficult for me to get outside without getting completely soaked. Those few minutes I have managed in between rain showers have been devoted to checking on the soon to be picked Corn and the ongoing maintenance of the Cucumber plants. As a result I've been neglecting some of the other sturdier plants such as the Soy Beans.

Thankfully with my favorite day of the week finally here, I spent a glorious hour outside at sunrise this morning and to my surprise I found my Soy Bean crop was green, plump and ready to pick. Given that in a moment of poor planning I had planted the seeds right next to the Cucumbers (which subsequently took over the whole area and prevented the Soy plants from really getting into their stride) I was really pleased to see the haul we got from just the four plants that managed to grow.

I definitely think I'll try some more of these seeds, but this time in a better spot once I get the Corn Harvest picked and we have some more room, but in the meantime can anyone say "Soy Bean Humus" tonight?

More on Cucumber Flowers

It's hard to believe that its been almost eight weeks since I planted my two young Cucumber Plants. In that time both plants have been growing and spreading well, despite adverse weather and a continuing onslaught from one of the worse Aphid invasions I've ever seen.

I've been seeing plenty of flowers blossoming each morning, but until this evening I've only seen male flowers appearing. This isn't unusual in a young Cucumber plant. The plants need to devote all of their energy to growing and spreading so that the plant doesn't get overstressed when the time comes to bear fruit. Typically the male flowers appear early on during this growth, so that the plant can start attracting the visitors it going to need to spread the pollen when the time comes for it to start bearing fruit.

Finally, it appears that time has come.

While trimming back and spraying leaves last night, I came across the first female flowers I've seen. The flowers appear to only be on one plant although with the interweaving vines I couldn't tell you which one. In order to identify a female flower, you need to look for a young cucumber growing behind the flower such as the one in the picture below.

In order to pollinate the female flower so that the young cucumber continues to grow, it is necessary for a pollinating visitor to land on a male flower, pick up its pollen (usually by accident as it feeds) and then spread it to a female flower.

Of course if you want to help nature along you can always spread the pollen yourself. There are two typical ways you can do this. You can use a Q-Tip to spread collect male pollen and then spread that to the female flower, or you can pick a male flower off the vine, strip it of its leaves and then gently brush the male flowers anthers against the female flowers. 

When pollination is successful, the female flower will wither and the Cucumber will start to develop. Here's another flower I found where this has already started to happen.

 Now as long as I keep the Aphids at bay, I should start to see these flowers popping up and with some luck and care, there should be fresh Cucumbers on my table soon.

Basil Harvest

We finally seem to have settled back into our normal weather pattern here in Central Florida this week, which means consistent showers in the afternoon and of course lots of sunshine and humid heat. Some of the plants struggle with it, some thrive in it.

One of the plants that has really thrived is the Basil. Being a warm weather plant, it's really been thriving in all of the heat and we've been picking leaves almost daily. In fact its been thriving so well that its I had to trim one side back today in order to maintain a good supply of sunlight to the other plants nearby. The result of the trim was this huge bowl of leaves.

Of course, we still have a more than ample supply to work with so we'll be been bagging up these leaves tonight and giving them to friends and family.

Here comes the Corn

It's the middle of summer in Central Florida and like most of the East Coast, we've been sweltering and hiding away from the fierce sun. I've been trying to get outside daily to keep up with my Concrete Garden, but found that dawn really is the only pleasant time of day right now. At that point, right after the sun has risen just enough to allow me to see unaided, but not enough to start significantly heating the day I find I potter around for twenty minutes before I have to get ready to go to work. The end of those twenty minutes also makes for great light for photography, so this morning I took the opportunity to snap a couple of photos to show you the rapid developments going on with my corn.

The tassels first started showing up about a week ago and I've been eagerly awaiting the tell tale signs of the Silk Strands

and sure enough, late Friday Afternoon I spotted the first strands appearing. This morning I was able to lean in and snap a photograph of two of the strands. This is after just two days.

It should take about twenty days for the corn to be ready to harvest, we'll find out if my gamble with planting them in a single row to fertile the cobs will pay off, or if the recommendation to plant them in a number of rows was the way to go. For now however its going to be a waiting and pest watching game.

The Tower of Carrots

One of the more unique experiments that I'm trying this summer season is using my spare Argo Tower strawberry slots to grow Carrots. I purchased this easy to assemble set-up last year with the intention of growing Strawberries and if you take a look at the photograph, you can see my test plants on the top layer. I intend to add some irrigation and fill the rest of the slots with more seasons when the season re-opens in September, but with a couple of months spare and some available space, I though I would give the carrot seeds another go.

 

As you will recall, I attempted to grown carrots in my Concrete Garden Bed and before the wrath of Debby the carrots were growing well, even if they were a little slow to start, so I've planted two seeds in each of the six slots giving me the potential for twenty four carrots once I thin out any extras. Each bowl is deep enough to allow the carrots to grown and each side gets some full sun each day.

Hopefully soon, I'll be munching on some carrots.  

After the Storm - TLC

WOW, what a wild week of weather we've had. Last week started with an unwelcome visit from Tropical Storm Debby. Highlights of Debby's visit included 5 inches of rain being dropped in a 36 hour period here in Central Florida, along with large gusts of wind that blew debris all over the place.

 After Debby moved offshore, a heat-wave settled in taking temperatures into the mid to high 90's with no cloud cover to protect my recovering plants, small wonder that my Concrete Garden is in need of a little TLC.

While most of the plants survived the weather, sadly we had to bid farewell to the Onion Chives, Carrots and Winter Squash. My experimental Gutter Guard worked well, but wasn't built to withstand that much water being delivered in that short a time. A redesign is in order.

Not everything suffered however, the Basil loved all of the rain and has really got into its stride. We've starting picking leaves to make fresh Pesto with.

Another plant that seems to be doing well is the Sweet Corn. Of the eight seeds I planted last month, seven produced plants and we're waiting eagerly to see the cob starting to form.

 

The Cucumber continues to grow well, although the Aphid infestation is taking its toll. The natural remedies I've tried do seem to have had some effect and I've seen a few beneficial insects arriving, but unless I see a dramatic improvement in the next 48 hours, I'm going to have to resort to a spray of some sort to save the crop.

 Finally the rest of the Herbs and the Lettuce are recovering well and my rabbit is happily chewing on his first test leave as I type.

So with the bed weeded, the remains of the Carrots, Onion Chives and Winter Squash removed and everything freshly watered, I'm going to duck back inside before the sun starts getting too hot and work out what I'm going to plant in the empty spaces.