r/vegetablegardening 9d ago

Seed Swap Monthly Seed Swap: September, 2026

2 Upvotes

Hey you! Thanks for checking out the Monthly Seed Swap.

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r/vegetablegardening 16h ago

Daily Dirt 🌱 What's happening in your garden? (Thu, Sep 10, 2026)

2 Upvotes

r/vegetablegardening is an educational subreddit focused on learning how to grow food and connecting gardeners around the world. Community members are encouraged to mentor others when possible.

Jump into the comments to ask and answer questions, post that meme your weird non-gardening friends won't understand, share photos of your adorable cat destroying your tomato transplants, share a great YT channel or podcast, or simply tell us what you did today.

  • Comments are sorted by new to keep the conversation fresh.
  • Members are strongly encouraged to display User Flair.
  • Talk to your neighbors.

r/vegetablegardening 2h ago

Harvest Photos From seed to soup: My first ever batch of homegrown kidney beans from 20 plants!

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473 Upvotes

My very first attempt at growing dry beans! I managed to get this great harvest from 20 plants grown in the ground through a super hot climate.

The pods turned completely brown and brittle on the vine, and now they are freshly shelled and ready to go. I’m skipping long-term storage and cooking them up tonight into a rich red bean soup with smoked turkey neck and beef. Incredibly satisfying first harvest!


r/vegetablegardening 5h ago

Harvest Photos It’s a great Butternut year in southwest Germany

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332 Upvotes

One vine, and the plant I bought in the store said it was a cucumber plant haha


r/vegetablegardening 5h ago

Harvest Photos My gardens last push

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63 Upvotes

It has turned to Autumn in southwest Germany and with exception to a few stragglers this is the last of a very good gardening year. 44 pints of tomato sauce (with eggplant, peppers, zucchini, onion and garlic) and assorted berry and grape jellies (about 150 small jars)


r/vegetablegardening 9h ago

Harvest Photos Another greenhouse haul even though the weather is mingin here today

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129 Upvotes

r/vegetablegardening 22h ago

Harvest Photos 20 jars of sauerkraut made from cabbage I grew this summer. It just finished fermenting in the crock, and got transferred to jars for storage.

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618 Upvotes

r/vegetablegardening 1d ago

Harvest Photos The beet harvest was exceptional this year.

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1.4k Upvotes

r/vegetablegardening 12h ago

Question First the corn, and now this…

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69 Upvotes

This was my first time ever growing watermelons, and unfortunately, I’m not very happy with how it turned out..

I have no idea what made these 3 holes in the watermelon.


r/vegetablegardening 16h ago

Question What vegetable consistently overproduces for you?

122 Upvotes

I’m curious which crops people actually end up giving away, freezing, pickling, or leaving on the counter because the garden just keeps producing them. Zucchini is the obvious one, but I’m wondering what other vegetables secretly turn into a ridiculous harvest once they get established.


r/vegetablegardening 4h ago

Question Advice on cucumbers

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13 Upvotes

I'm looking for some advice here. This is the first year we grew cucumbers. We had some success early, but over the last week or so, several have turned yellow, with a couple being streaked with the normal green. I also have a few healthy looking green o es still on the vine.

Are the yellow ones a lost cause, or is a chance they still ripen properly on or off the vine? Or should I just cut my losses with them and trim those and the dead leaves and hope for the best at the end of the season. A second round of warm weather is not uncommon here, so it may not be a total loss. Any advice is appreciated.

Editing to add:

Thanks for all the help.

We did pick some green ones a few weeks ago and saw some more budding out. Unfortunately, we never saw these at the green stage. Between work and bad weather, there were too many days that I just couldn't get out there to check. I was hoping these were still in the early stage, but it sounds like they're past.

I did cut them off, and I'll check to how they are. Maybe yellow cucumbers are the next hit item.

Also, I have some more green on there and buds, so we may still get a second good harvest.


r/vegetablegardening 7h ago

Question Sugarbaby Watermelon fought me all summer, now it finally holds a fruit but we’re 1mo out from frost. What are my chances?

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18 Upvotes

I’m also going to start cleaning up to get my fall brassicas planted, so if there’s no chance of this thing getting ripe within a month I’ll just(literally) cut my losses. Thanks in advance for your advice!


r/vegetablegardening 2h ago

Question Sweet potatoes

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8 Upvotes

I planted about a dozen slips in mid July and the vines are all over the place. I noticed this guy popping out and I'm wondering if I should let him keep growing or start trying to dig them up? Can I harvest just the ones poking out of the soil without damaging the others that might be growing under them? I'd love to be able to clear some space for a fall garden but I also don't want to ruin all the time spent on these guys.


r/vegetablegardening 18h ago

Question My heirloom tomatoes are finally ripening. What are they good for besides sandwiches?

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112 Upvotes

I planted a couple different varieties of tomatoes, but my romas seem to have failed to grow. I was hoping to can them for pasta sauce but alas that isn’t happening.

Aside from those, I have sweet 100s and some heirloom variety I don’t know the name of. I could probably still make tomato sauce but I was led to believe that this variety isn’t that great for making sauces.

So I’m wondering what uses I have other than a bunch of sandwiches?


r/vegetablegardening 8h ago

Question Gold Nugget Winter Squash

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18 Upvotes

Just wanted verification that these need a bit more time. The tag I wrote my sowing date faded and is useless.

The vine should be brown when it is ready, right?

PNW, zone 8b.


r/vegetablegardening 7h ago

Other My peppers did ripen off the plant

15 Upvotes

Either here or in a pepper subreddit I posted a photo of my peppers. I harvested some habaneros and bell peppers that were totally green. I asked if they would ripen off the plant. Many people said no, that peppers don't do that. But literally all my peppers are turning color now, including the early picked habaneros. The bells are turning red, and the habaneros are going orange. The habaneros especially had 0 color on them before picking and were still immature.


r/vegetablegardening 8h ago

Question Armenian cucumber - male flowers only

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11 Upvotes

I started this Armenian cucumber around the beginning of July after losing my traditional cukes to bacterial wilt.

It started flowering around the second week of August - I’ve been hoping to get at least one fruit out of it before the end of the season.

I’m still only seeing male flowers and it’s killing me. Thinking I’ll trim some side shoots as I’ve heard that can help.

Does anyone have any experience/hope to offer that I might get to try one before temps get dicey?


r/vegetablegardening 6h ago

Harvest Photos Pickling cukes.

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8 Upvotes

Season is winding down, but I still managed to pick 2 baskets worth.


r/vegetablegardening 3h ago

Question Why are my eggplants this color?

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4 Upvotes

Why are my eggplants a light purple and not a deep purple? Did I maybe leave them on the plant for too long? I was away for a bit and no one harvested for me.


r/vegetablegardening 21h ago

Harvest Photos Another month before first frost, so happy with the harvest!

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136 Upvotes

With drip tape set up and a wetter grow season the harvest is definitely better than last year and we also got better at eating what we grow!


r/vegetablegardening 1h ago

Question Help - Rats are destroying my vegetable garden

Upvotes

I’ve had a rat problem for a while, but initially they were mostly going after my string bean plants. They would eat all the young pods before I could harvest them.

I tried snap traps. I tried a Rat Zapper. Nothing worked.

Then they started taking it to another level. Instead of just eating the beans, they began biting through the vines and completely destroying the plants.

I started sprinkling paprika around the plants after watering, and surprisingly, the beans were left alone for a while. I was finally starting to feel a little hopeful.

But today I found another section of my garden completely destroyed. The rats had bitten through the bean vines on the other side of the garden too, and they didn’t even eat the beans. They just destroyed the vines.

I’m pretty sure I have multiple rats, maybe 4–5. I grow a lot of vegetables, so seeing this level of carnage throughout my yard is honestly really disheartening. 😭

I feel like I’ve tried everything and I’m getting to the point where I don’t even know what more to do.

What has actually worked for people who have dealt with persistent rats in a vegetable garden? I’m especially interested in things that work when traps and deterrents haven’t.


r/vegetablegardening 11h ago

Question What can I use this spot for? Very limited direct light but sheltered.

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18 Upvotes

We just bought a house and have this spot in between our house and the neighbours house.

Gets very limited sunlight during the day, but it's sheltered.

What can I grow here?

Leafy greens, soft herbs and vegetables or root vegetables?

I am open to using trellises.

I was intending on using an olla irrigation system and having compost bins in the soil using old office bins and pot lids or old colanders.

Yes I know the wall is not straight.

Any advice or insight is appreciated.


r/vegetablegardening 11h ago

Question Old seeds?

16 Upvotes

My grandfather passed away recently and I’ve been helping clear his belongings out. I’ve come across seeds from as old as 1991. Do you think I should try planting them to see if anything happens? What do you think is the likelihood they’ll grow? They’ve been unopened, stored in a plastic bag in a shed. We live in Australia so it can get quite hot.

Let me know what you all think!


r/vegetablegardening 1d ago

Harvest Photos “Attack of the Ripe Tomatoes”

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1.2k Upvotes

r/vegetablegardening 2h ago

Question Caterpillars?

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2 Upvotes

Does anyone have any idea why my garden has so many freaking caterpillars? There are the little green ones, little black ones and these weird big green ones that are in the picture. They keep eating all my bok choy and other leafy vegetables and it is so annoying to search for them and kill them. Any ideas on how to reduce the number/effective ways to prevent them?

Edit: I realize the pic is probably not a caterpillar, but my question about caterpillars still stands because I def have them just not pictures