Yesterday I stopped by The Duck Lady’s place for a visit and to check out her massive garden. She has a roadside stand where she sells her extra garden produce, eggs and baked goods and it’s always fun to see what’s going on there. Now it my turn for Mid July Gardening in Coastal Maine.
Mid July Gardening in Coastal Maine
The tomato plants at her place are HUGE! And by huge I’m talking waist high {and then some!}.
I don’t know what that woman has in her soil over there… but I came home with a cabbage the size of a small child. Seriously, I put it on the scale when I got home and the thing weighed in at over 9 pounds.
Did I mention that she has only watered her garden ONCE this year?
Yep. Only once. Her soil is that good. And, she’s also using the Dewitt Sunbelt Weed Barrier in her garden this year to cut down on weeds and trap the moisture in the ground. Note to self: Buy this stuff for next year’s religious family sized garden plot.
In a nutshell, I’m totally jealous of her massive vegetable garden and the size of her plants. But it gives me something to strive for. And hopefully by this time next year, we’ll have built up the soil in our big garden with enough amendments that we too will be growing 9 pound cabbages in our field.
Good gardens take time… and we’re only in our second season here so I shouldn’t get too discouraged.
Afterall, our little kitchen garden is humming along nicely.
Yesterday I picked our first round of Tall Telephone shelling peas from along the front of the picket fence and I’m happy to report that the peas are delicious. Next year, I want to dedicate a few rows down in the big garden to growing this variety of peas.
And the rest of the vegetables {tomatoes, cucumbers, radishes, beans, celery, rhubarb, garlic, onions, parsnips, beets, potatoes and herbs} in the kitchen garden are doing well this year too.
I suspect we’ll have some Roma tomatoes to harvest in another week or two.
I’ve also been busy planting seeds {broccoli and cabbage} to replace the tomato plants once they’re done producing. I figure as long as the weather holds out I might as well keep something growing in the ground until the ground freezes.
I planted parsnips, carrots and beet seeds in the ground last week and plan to keep those going under row covers to extend our gardening season.
And today I’ll be planting another round of zucchini and cucumber plants. If all goes well, we should be able to harvest the zucchini and cucumbers right up until the first frost {usually around early October here}.
And green beans! I transplanted the second to last round of beans I’ll be growing this year to the garden last night as well. I love this time of year, but it also makes me a little anxious because I know we only have a limited number of growing days left in the season and I want to make sure we maximize them all.
I’m just so glad we live in an area where getting outside and playing in the dirt is an enjoyable endeavor and not a hot and humid sticky mess.
Well, I’m off weed the garden,
Have a good one. 🙂
~ Mavis
P.S. What are you harvesting these days? Are you picking heaps of tomatoes yet? Curious minds want to know.
Mary says
Romas, yellow cherry tomatoes from the greenhouse. Got one light green Botanical Interest zucchini. It’s just starting to come in here in northern VT.
Hawaii Planner says
We’re in California, and all about the peppers (jalapenos, green, different chiles, etc), tomatoes, cucumbers, lettuce, & a few different types of squash. We also have a bunch of herbs.
That is a serious garden!
Audra from Ohio says
I got my garden in a bit late this year so am currently harvesting mainly cucumbers, kale, and herbs here in Ohio (6b). Raspberries just finished, first cherry tomatoes should be ripe in a week or so!
And, I’ve scored two boxes of seconds peaches from our local farm stand so I’ve gotten some adobo peach salsa and peach jam canned up, yum!
Christie says
Your garden looks beautiful, and weed free! Mine is a weedy mess but I’ve got peas, peppers, cherry tomatoes, green beans, beets and lots of herbs. This is by far my favorite time of year!
Jeanine says
It appears like the duck lady has some kind of barrier around her garden…did you check it out? Also, it’s amazing how big the plants grow there in Maine. It must be the long sunny days and good fertilizer. What’s the secret?
I do have lots of trees around my garden and some inside my double fenced area…so the trees are shading my plants at different times during the day…but my plants are coming along…but slowly!
I look forward to your blog every morning and enjoy all your fun stories and adventures.
Mavis Butterfield says
Yes, she has a 5 foot fence up and the deer and turkeys still get in {there were prints from the night before on the landscape fabric}. 🙂
Dianna says
I love her garden and want to live in it! We are in the hot, humid place you speak of (east TN). I try to get out as early in the morning as possible, but I am still drenched in sweat within 20 minutes.
This year my garden is pitiful. The heat in June was scorching, so my plants just didn’t do as well as they usually do. The tomato plants are so small (usually taller than me by this point) and my squash plants were decimated by bugs that took over earlier than normal. Still plugging along…just replacing the plants and have big hopes that the fall garden will make up for it.
Kathy Wolfe says
Alabama……hot, muggy, sticky and can’t hardly breathe outside!!
Diane says
WOW, what a garden! I had no clue a cabbage could grow to 9 pounds. Amazing!
My big thing right now is trying to get the cherry tree picked before the cherries are overripe or all the critters in the neighborhood have a party! Rest of the garden will have to be patient with me.
So loved today’s post, thanks Mavis! You’ve created a beautiful way for me to start the day. Grateful you started blogging and that I found you. Have a great day and see you tomorrow
Angie says
Georgia and it is hot and humid to say the least but we are working in the garden anyway.
I am harvesting loads of cucumbers, cherry tomatoes, sun gold
Tomatoes, yellow squash, basil, zucchini and some
Peppers. Some of my
Peppers seem
To be struggling with blossom end rot so I will be treating them this weekend along with sowing in miracle
Grow soil and some
Additional nitrogen to Ammend the soil. This is our first year in this garden so we are trying our best and investing in the soil as much as we can. I am hoping that the fall harvest will be even better as we continue to enrich the dirt. With the added nutrients we should see quite a lot of field peas on August & September and our green beans are flowering like crazy.
Katherine says
Yeah, we are definitely wearing the air here in Ga.
Catherine says
I picked my first cabbage and it was 3 pounds, the duck lady’s cabbage was three times the size of mine, wow!
Mavis Butterfield says
I had to pick my cabbages a little early to stay ahead of the bugs and they were only about 2 pounds. 🙂 I need to find out her secret.
Susan says
Picked all our cabbages today. This is the first time planting cabbage. Ended
up with 44.8 lb …..an average of 2 lb each
Also picked b/c the moths were starting to gather and it is getting hot here.
Really happy with what we got!
Time to make sauerkraut!!
Natasha says
I garden in zone 2b which has its challenges so far we are harvesting hascap berries (honeyberries), lettuce, spinach and the garlic scapes are just about ready. We had a cold spring and this last week someone turned on a switch so it’s super hot. Peppers and tomatoes are coming along nicely along with the peas and beans. Beets and carrots, parsnips are looking good. Cucumbers and squash have been slow but looking better after the heat.
We live in an area with all sorts of critters, deer, elk, moose, rabbits, turkeys, pocket gophers so all of my beds have tall fences and all my raised beds have hardwire cloth in the bottom to keep them from digging up. Plus the ones that aren’t fenced yet we have motion detector sprinklers. The only issue is it doesn’t detect between human VS animals.
Chyrl says
Hot and humid here near the Gulf Coast of Texas. We too always say the air you wear! At least our long fall gardening season makes up for some of the summer heat. Your kitchen garden is so beautiful especially with the white picket fence. And the duck lady’s garden is awesome!
Patti says
We are picking Purple Cherokee, Early Girl, Roma, and cherry tomatoes – a lot of them! We also have green peppers, cucumbers, and Lemon cucumbers ( a new variety). Usually when the heat is this bad (100 degree days here in South Carolina), our plants stop producing but that’s okay. If we are patient, they will come back and we will pick tomatoes up until about December and then pick the green ones and keep them. I think I will check our seed exchange at the library and see if we have any cool weather crops we can start now.
Annette says
A library seed exchange sounds cool.
LindaT says
Southwest Ohio. Have picked all but one broccoli head, but am stating to get side shoots. Picked the first peppers yesterday. Have close to the last of the raspberries – a bumper crop this year! I noticed some of the tomatoes are starting to change towards ripening. I planted a few radishes, a tomato that started in a flower pot, and we dug some of the March planted potatoes. Had some for dinner -yum!
Tomorrow I’ll see plant green beans and hope they aren’t the pole ones. If they are, they’ll have to climb the tomato cages.
Tarah says
Also in Georgia and we have been harvesting tons of Roma, beefsteak, and cherry tomatoes, along with corn, zucchinis, cucumbers, eggplants, and my husband’s beloved okra. I think we may have a watermelon or two ready to pick as well.
I believe our garden is also a religious family-sized one, so for just the two of us it’s probably a little extreme, but we give a lot of our excess produce to my mother-in-law and to work colleagues.
I don’t know what I would do if we had a garden the size of the Duck Lady’s, though! Gorgeous.
Judy says
Am so jealous, compared to my garden. Sigh
Emily says
Can you roll the weed barrier up to use again the next year, or is it once time use?
Mavis Butterfield says
Yes, it can be used again. 🙂