Summertime Harvest in the Southeast
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We’re about three weeks into vine-ripened tomatoes here in North Carolina’s Piedmont (central) region, and Southern palettes salivate in anticipation of the season’s first tomato sandwich – two pieces of white bread, mayo, salt, pepper and about three slices of a fresh tomato. My Roma tomato plants (ideal for canning, with their meaty fruit) are loaded with green produce, so I’ll just have to patiently wait for them to turn red.
 Add Photo to Journal |  | | Photo Credit: Megan Bame | | It’s no surprise these are called grape tomatoes – they resemble a grape cluster as they grow and ripen. |
The cucumber and squash harvest has slowed here, and while we enjoyed our first planting and harvest of sweet corn, we’re again praying for rain so that successive plantings will fill out. (We planted a couple rows of corn every two to three weeks this season, for a total of four plantings, so we could spread the harvest throughout the summer.) Since we don’t spray our sweet corn, we anticipate finding a corn worm in almost every ear. Of course, that’s really no big deal – we just cut off the tip of the ear where the worm feasted. (A friend of ours reported that her kids wanted to adopt the worms as pets…whereas I like to squish ’em.)
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| Warnings |
- Keep a close eye on vegetable development so that you don’t miss the prime harvest. Sure, we all occasionally overlook a veggie that later becomes a monster, but often taste will deteriorate if veggies become overripe – and they may eventually rot, creating a potential disease problem.
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| Tips |
- Learn to eat according to the local seasons. Produce tastes better and lasts longer if it’s picked fresh and sold locally, compared with produce that’s picked early and artificially ripened as it’s shipped, often thousands of miles to your grocery store.
- Some veggies are easy to harvest with just a slight tug, but others, such as okra and eggplant, are best harvested by cutting the stem from the plant.
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| Facts |
- This harvest update represents the entire Southeast, but there’s a great climate variation within the region. South Carolina’s a little warmer than North Carolina – making the growing season earlier – and Georgia’s a little earlier than South Carolina. Meanwhile, the warmth of the North Carolina coast keeps eastern growers at least two to three weeks ahead of mountain growers in the western part of the state.
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Next Steps
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Growing your own herbs isn’t hard. Creating a container garden of these tasty gems can keep culinary pleasures at your doorstep to enjoy all season long.
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You Cook Toe-may-toes, I Cook Toe-mah-toes…
Your vegetable garden is bursting with flavor – now what do you do with all those tomatoes you’ve been picking? Turn your harvest into a quick and easy puree! Here’s how, along with some tasty puree-based recipes sure to please the fam.
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Enjoying Safety Along With the Harvest
Children tend to eat more fruits and vegetables when they’re the ones who help plant, pick and prepare the harvest. But bringing their prized produce into the kitchen means knowing the safety rules first.
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