The grandchild-assistants and I did a lot of harvesting this weekend, with raspberries, blueberries, peaches, Swiss chard, potatoes, summer squash and zucchini for fruits/vegetables and a lot of flowers coming out of our garden. We also purchased corn and grape tomatoes from our local farm stand.

Amazingly enough, I got 16-month-old James and 3.5-year-old Alana to put some of the blueberries and raspberries they picked into a basket. Both in the grand scheme of things ate more than they picked, but at least they learned a little about delayed gratification.

I could have picked a watermelon, first photo, but I deemed it not quite large enough. Again with the delayed gratification. The next time we are scheduled to see Maeve, we  will pick the watermelon. She is the big fan – although James went to a party Saturday night and reportedly didn't eat anything except watermelon.

We do have one golf-ball-size tomato in the garden that has turned slightly pink. It would be nice to have a bunch of tomatoes soon.

I am pretty sure we do not have a blight, but all of the Dark Red Norland potato vines died back. I dug those, we ate some and gave some to the families of our son and daughter. The rest of the potato and all the tomato plants still look good, so some other problem must have done in the Norland. It is supposed to ber an early potato, anyway.

This is the first year we have grown Bright Lights Swiss Chard, and it is doing very well. This is the first planting, and I put in a second planting for a fall crop about a week ago – along with lettuce, beets and carrots. It will be interesting if any or all of them get mature enough go provide a lot of eating. I am pretty sure the lettuce will, because we have done that before. They all went in where we pulled out the pea vines.

The gladioli have been flowering for about a week. We cut them when they look about like the third photo and bring them inside. That way the blossom up the stem and provide use indoor flowers for a week or more.

If you want to check out Sunday's column it amounts to a walk around Plainview Farms in North Yarmouth with owner Steven Palmer, talking about plants that bloom later in the season.

About the Author

Tom Atwell has written the Maine Gardener column in the Maine Sunday Telegram since the spring of 2004. He has worked at the Press Herald/Sunday Telegram since 1974, about the same time he started gardening with any seriousness.

He gardens with his wife, Nancy. She not only is the better gardener of the pair, but also knows the botanical names of plants. They have two grown children and four grandchildren.

Tom was born in Skowhegan, grew up in Farmington and graduated from the University of Maine with a BA in journalism. His goal each year is to have continuous compost from his three compost bins, continuous bloom in his low-maintenance garden and more fruits and vegetables on his family table than the garden pests eat in the field.

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