Always Learning

I had a few “Whoops!” moments in the garden over the last week.

First and not really surprisingly are a few very overgrown cucumbers:

These were found among the extra plants I planted along the edge of the yard. We have had enough cucumbers this year and I have not been picking them every day like earlier in the season. I’ve made all the pickles we can consume in a year. A few cucumbers are still used for salads. But the last time I brought a batch to work to give away, there were a lot of leftovers. These overgrown cucumbers were added to the compost pile.

The second was my first eggplant that I allowed to over ripen:

The first fruit began forming a few weeks ago. The plants had a difficult time producing as the Japanese beetles were devouring the blossoms as soon as they opened. I watched this fruit form and grow long. Then, I noticed the dark glossy color was gone!

I pulled out the seed package and read that this variety of Japanese Eggplant only grows to 6-inches! I allowed the first one to over ripen thinking that it was going to grow larger. Luckily there are more fruit growing. Below is a comparison of the overripe with one harvested today:

The third was my first two Charantais melons:

The melon patch has two kinds of cantaloupe growing intertwined among each other. The corked skins fooled me. I thought the melons above were Fastbreak and was waiting for them to slip from the vine. Turns out they are Charantais melons and ended up splitting from over ripening. We ate them anyway. They were a little mealy textured.

Hopefully now I will be better at judging the optimum harvest time of these items.