In this week’s update, we harvested and began eating from our garden. I’ll tell you what vegetables they were and how we ate them. We also started more corn for a late harvest and planted the last melons we’re growing this year. I’ll provide a general update on everything we’re growing as well. Finally, this edition of the Seed of the Week takes us to the American Southwest, where a variety of corn has been grown for over 800 years. Let’s dive in.
First Harvest
This week saw us achieve a goal we set at the start of the garden: Harvest something from our garden and eat it the same day. That included three cucumbers and two eggplants. Two of the cucumbers were from plants gifted to us by our neighbor, but one was a Boston Pickling that I started from seed, making it the first fruit harvested from this year’s garden that I started from seed. We ate the cucumbers raw by slicing them and eating them on the side with dinner. For the eggplants, Magz sliced them into coin shapes and roasted them in oil and seasoning. They were delicious. We’ve found that doing as little as possible with high-quality, fresh vegetables is the best thing for them. We have a lot more cucumbers coming on, and there are more eggplants that are close to being harvestable, so we’ll be eating a lot more of them moving forward.
Starting More Corn
We had some open areas of our garden beds where potatoes weren’t growing, which we think is the result of poor drainage and too much rain early on. In the open rows, we wanted to grow more of something that we’ve had great success with: corn. We still had some Hopi Blue and Sweet Mexican/Black Iroquois seeds left, but because the Hopi Blue corn takes a lot longer to reach maturity, we planted the rest of the Sweet Mexican/Black Iroquois seeds. All three varieties (the above two and Butter & Sugar) have done exceptionally well, and a late planting of corn could lead to us having sweet corn in September.

At the same time, we planted all the remaining melons and squashes that we’re growing this year. In a few more open spots, we dedicated two of them to the White Scallop Winter Squash, three of them to Ali Baba Watermelons, and four to the Noir de Carmes cantaloupes.
A General Update (With Pictures!)
- Our tomatoes continue to put on fruit, with the Cherokee Blue, Black Krim, and Queen Aliquppa growing close to full size. Now, we just wait for them to ripen.
- Our Cal Wonder pepper plants have quite a few fruit on them, but they haven’t reached full size or started to ripen yet. Our plants also haven’t grown to full height, which is weird. I read that peppers are one of the slowest-growing plants and require hot temperatures and full sun, which we’ve had lots of this summer. I’m still holding out hope for them.
- Our melons, squash, and pumpkins are all doing well. We have spaghetti squash that are close to softball size and many cucumbers that are growing. Most of the other plants are producing blossoms.
- The tomatillos have been growing their husks for more than a week now, with one of them larger than a golf ball. There are many husks starting and even more flowers coming on at the same time.
- We are finally starting to see some progress with our beans. The first batch of Provider beans has a few beans on the plants, which is major progress, even if the pods are small. Our Kebarika and Jamapa plants have started to produce flowers.


Seed of the Week
Our Seed of the Week this time is the Hope Blue corn variety. It’s a very old type of corn that has been grown in Northern Arizona for over 800 years by the Hopi Native American tribe. This variety is a flint/flour type of corn and is milled down into cornmeal or flour. The Hopis use it to make a ceremonial type of bread called piki. But even though this variety is primarily used for flour, it can be eaten as sweet corn.

The kernels of Hopi Blue corn are dark blue, nearly black, and the stalks grow up to nine feet tall. We got our seeds from Fedco out of Maine, and on the listing, they quote one of their growers, who says that the corn is “crunchy, corny and wholesome.” We’ve had great success with our Hopi Blue seeds. They overcame torrential downpours within a week of being sown and have excelled. The stalks are currently taller than our fence (so about 4 1/2 feet) and are gorgeous. If you’re curious about growing different varieties of corn, give this one a try.
Up Next
This week, I’d love to see some of our tomatoes begin to ripen. Our cherry tomatoes are pretty much full size, so ripening is the next step. I also think we’ll harvest some of our beans. Beyond that, we’re enjoying how relaxing it is to watch our garden grow. Each day, something new happens or we can see measurable growth. For example, we had a cucumber grow multiple inches in one day. It’s unbelievable. I hope your garden is doing well. Happy gardening.

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