Weekly Gardening Outlook

This will be a continuing series where we look ahead at the coming week in gardening for the Northwest Arkansas area.

Rocky Top lettuce mix (week 2)

Pink Beauty radishes (week 2)

Dry weather this past week has required frequent watering of these new seedlings, especially the lettuce.

Swiss Chard

 These gems continue to produce for us, regardless of the weather.

Blue Scotch Kale

The kale hasn't taken off again like we had hoped, but the temperatures have been close to 90 over the last week.  Maybe when it cools down.

Celeriac growing nice big roots

 These aren't ready to harvest yet, but they are growing great!  Should be good recipe additions this winter.  We have enjoyed the greens as a celery flavor addition to many recipes this summer.

Purple "green beans"

 This was part of dinner last night.  Nothing like fresh from the vine to the plate in less than 30 minutes.

Jalapeño peppers to the left; Serrano peppers to the right

 The cooler weather has rejuvenated these peppers.  Believe it or not, they don't prefer scorching hot temperatures.

Evergreen bunching onions

These have provided us with fresh green onions for cooking all summer.

Things to be on the lookout for:

Harlequin bugs atop Swiss chard

TIP:  Spray the plant with water for a few seconds and, within a minute or two, any harlequin bugs will climb to the top of the plant.  This works for squash bugs and leaffooted bugs as well.  Once at the top, they can be sprayed with an organic contact killer like pyrethrin or hand picked/vacuumed off.  Even though pyrethrin is considered organic, we hand picked these off.  We will be eating the greens and don't want to spray them directly.

Weather outlook:

-Warm; upper 80's early falling to upper 70's later in the week, with a chance of rain every day.
-Ten day forecast

What's being harvested:

-Green beans

-Peppers
-Chard
-Tomatoes
-Celeriac leaves, basil, mint, and other herbs
-Apples