Weekly Garden Update #6 – Cucumbers, Zucchini, Corn Growth & More

In this week’s update, we finally harvested our first cucumbers from this year’s garden. We also picked more zucchini, our corn is producing ears, our melons are showing major growth, we harvested a bunch of beans, and more. Let’s dive in!

First Cucumber Harvest

Until last week, our cucumber plants were perplexing. As a refresher, we’re growing a variety called Bushy, which originally came from Russia and does well in cool climates. I started them from seeds and transplanted 4 plants into the garden, with 3 of them surviving. What has confused me about this cucumber is that the name Bushy implies a contained plant that doesn’t sprawl out. That hasn’t been the case, as the plants have vined out feet from the roots. Yesterday, I revisited the seed listing, and this variety still produces 5-foot vines, so they’re growing as expected.

The other thing that’s perplexed me about them is how long they’re taking to grow. It felt like this year’s cucumbers (and other vegetables) were taking longer to mature than last year’s garden; however, looking at my weekly blog entries from last year, I learned that we didn’t pick our first cucumbers until the second week of July. So, at most, we’re a week late, which is almost entirely the result of the weather. The craziest part is that on Wednesday of last week, our cucumbers were only 3 or 4 inches long, but by Sunday evening, we picked 6 that were 7 to 8 inches long, with 2 of them being overripe. Magz cut 2 of the cucumbers into chunks, and we ate them raw with dinner. The Bushy cucumber is a very tasty variety that is firm enough to hold up to brining for pickles but still tender enough to be eaten fresh.

Experiencing New Summer Squash Varieties

In last week’s update, I wrote about our first zucchini harvest for the year, which was a Costata Romanesca. Since then, we’ve picked 4 or 5 more of them as well as 3 or 4 Lebanese White Bush, 2 Ronde de Nice, and 1 Black Beauty. The Lebanese White Bush is an heirloom variety that produces 4-to-5-inch squashes that are light green in color. The Ronde de Nice is a French heirloom that has an acorn shape but is a summer squash. It can be dark or light green and is typically picked at 4 inches in diameter. The Black Beauty is the dark green zucchini that comes to mind for most people when they think of a zucchini. It has a smooth skin with an even color, and we pick ours when they’re 8 to 10 inches in length.

We’ve eaten at least one of each variety except for the Black Beauty, and all are delicious. My dad and stepmom visited us this past weekend, and we were able to send them home with some Costata Romanesca, Ronde de Nice, and Lebanese White Bush. My dad messaged me yesterday and said that they fried the Ronde de Nice and loved it. In a future blog post, I’ll review each variety and detail the flavors.

Corn Tassels and Ears

Our corn has really taken off over the past week. Our Painted Mountain corn has the most beautiful reddish-purple stalk, and even the tassels and silk have a purple tinge to them. They’re almost 6 feet tall and have ears developing. Meanwhile, our Sweet Mexican corn is approaching 7 feet tall, and the tassels are starting to appear. Nearly every day, we go out to the garden to tap the stalks to help germinate the ears.

A Bean Harvest

On Sunday, we had the joy of being able to harvest a full dinner’s worth of beans. We grew beans last year and were able to eat some, but they didn’t grow well, and we never had enough ripen at once to have as a meal. This year, conditions seem to be perfect for growing them, because we’re having a ton of success. We picked Beurre De Rocquencourt and Maxibel Haricot Vert, yielding a quart in total. Magz steamed them, melted butter over them, and added a pinch of Kosher salt and black pepper.

Even though we ate the two varieties together, you could taste a difference between the two beans, which I love. Yesterday, that harvest was followed up with another quart of beans, with Cherokee Wax beans comprising the bulk of the haul.

A Grab Bag of Topics – Potatoes, Peppers, Flax & More

Our potatoes continue to do well with the exception of one bag of Adirondack Blues. For some reason, that bag never took off, and on Saturday, I noticed that the plant that had been growing in it died. It’s not a big deal since we have 19 other bags that are doing well, and we’re going to use that bag to transplant a couple of the Gochugaru pepper plants I started late. In other pepper news, one of our habanero plants is producing fruit. It currently has 3 or 4 small peppers on it, each about 2 inches long.

Our flax and sunflowers are looking great. The flax plants are about 2 feet tall and have a lovely light purple flower on top. Not knowing how they grow or what to expect from them has made the process of growing them all the more fun. What we didn’t realize is how much flax you need to grow in order to turn it into a sizable amount of yarn/thread. We thought that growing a few rows of it would yield a decent amount, but it looks like we’ll need to grow an entire bed of it in the future. Meanwhile, our sunflowers are 4 feet tall (Mammoth variety) and 12 inches tall (Teddy Bear). The plants are looking healthy, and we’re hopeful that we’ll get heads to form on them this year and that we can prevent the squirrels from attacking them.

Lastly, we’re beginning to see progress from our melons. All 3 varieties are vining nicely and producing flowers, but the Montreal Market and Pride of Wisconsin are stealing the show. Both have fruit growing. The Montreal Market is nearly the size of a softball, while the Pride of Wisconsin is close to tennis ball size. Happy Gardening!