It’s time to start harvesting and donating your Plant a Row for the Hungry produce to a food bank, soup kitchen or food pantry near you.

This morning I spent time picking and packing 7 pounds of home-grown organic tomatoes and French yellow beans to drop off at The Friends of Saint Andrew in Aurora.

It’s taken most of the summer, but I finally had grown enough fresh veggies to play a small part in the Garden Writers Association national Plant a Row for the Hungry effort here in the Denver Metro area.

I called ahead and spoke with Sarah Norton, program director, to confirm the times volunteers would be there to accept produce and to ask the best way to package it. She said individual packets would make it easier for the volunteers to distribute, so I spent about 15 minutes packaging all sizes and colors of tomatoes and handfuls of long golden beans into small baggies.

Did you plant and grow any flowers, vegetables or herbs from Renee’s Garden seeds this year? If so, you can enter Renee’s 7th Annual Photo Contest and receive more seeds.

I’m having a hard time deciding which vegetable pictures to submit to Renee’s Garden for the gardening photo contest this year. Everything I planted did so well this year, including these round baby carrots called Romeo.

If you planted any of Renee’s Garden seeds, now’s the time to take a picture of the flowers, herbs or veggies and enter the contest. Every entry receives a free packet of seeds and a chance at a $50 gift certificate.

In addition to the main contest, there’s a special kid’s garden contest, too, for anyone under age 16.

For more information about the photo contest, visit Renee’s Garden website.

Renee’s Garden is known for its high-quality seed and every year the company offers a number of new flower and vegetable varieties.

Good things do come in small packages, especially when talking about miniature tomatoes. These gems may be small in size, but they’re big on flavor.

When I planted my crop of mini tomatoes in May, I was looking forward to harvesting a big batch of small fruits in a variety of colors, shapes and sizes.

Now I’m enjoying the fruits of my spring-time efforts.

Every year I plant a number of small tomatoes in containers on my patio, mostly as insurance against elements that seem to conspire against abundant tomato gardening and harvests in my climate. Many summers it’s either too cool or too hot. There may be too little precipitation or there’s too much hail.

Planting a nice selection of tomatoes helps ensure I’ll have some kind of crop by the end of the season. While the rest of my heirloom and other larger tomatoes are still growing, I’m enjoying the superior flavor of these littler ones.

The Loch Ness Cucumber, submitted by Ron Doyle, was the winner in last year’s Weird Veggie and Funny Fruit contest sponsored by WesternGardeners.com.

If it’s August, it’s time for the WesternGardeners.com Weird Veggie and Funny Fruit contest. I hope you’ll join us for some gardening fun.

For the next month, be on the lookout for any odd-looking fruit or vegetables you find in your garden or at a farmer’s market. And I do mean odd.

I’m talking about a potato that looks like Lady Gaga or an eggplant that grew into a work of art.

I’m looking for the weird and wonderful results of what happens when things go wrong with Mother Nature’s gardening plans…like Sweet Cheeks, a pear tomato I found growing in my garden last year.

When you find a crazy veggie or funny fruit, just take a digital picture of it and email it to jodi@westerngardeners.com by September 1.

These ripe sungold tomatoes signal the summer harvest is about to begin.

This year’s growing season is taking a lot longer than most–just ask the Hatch chile farmers in New Mexico or the peach producers on the Western Slope. Many crops are delayed because of the cool spring weather that seemed to last forever.

I experimented with planting two tomato plants in early April, thinking the wall of waters would protect them. I was dreaming of taking my first bite of home-grown tomato in June.

Ha!

Those poor plants had to suffer through freezing weather, several snowstorms, driving rain and then suddenly hot weather. The tomatoes on those plants are just now starting to ripen.

I planted 14 different tomato varieties, but some of the tomato plants have yet to set fruit. That means I won’t be growing any 2 pound Giant Belgiums like I did last season.

In May, I started my Great Potato Gardening Experiment when I planted a plastic trash bag and my compost bin full of seed potatoes.

“I sure hope there are some potatoes growing in there,” I thought to myself as I took some pictures of my backyard potato garden.

It’s the first time I’ve tried to grow spuds–and depending on the outcome–it may be my last.

Right after planting at the end of May, the potatoes started to send up green leafy shoots.

When the shoots were about 7 inches tall, I added more of my soil mixture, part mushroom compost and part potting soil, to the bag and the composter, leaving a few inches of the plant showing.

I’ve tried to keep the potatoes well-watered, but not too wet. After they’d grown another 7 inches, I added another layer of soil mix.

I’m hoping tubers are forming at this very minute.

Sex and the City 2 may feature “fashion’s fab four”,  but their haute couture has nothing on Hort Couture, the high-fashion plant brand for discriminating gardeners.

This season, my garden will be flaunting some of the most sophisticated plants on the market today.

These cool new styles will feature vibrant color combinations and dynamic new forms perfect for gardening.

Thanks to the sample package I received from the upscale Hort Couture (hortcoutureplants.com) plant brand, I’ll be growing Calibrachoa ‘Ready to Wear-Paris’, three Hemigraphis ‘Black Waffle’ plants, some Sage ‘La Crema’, a few ‘Black Krim’ tomatoes and the new ‘Tomaccio’ tomato meant for drying.

The plants are from C. Raker & Sons, Inc., in partnership with Hort Couture, which is making its third trip down the plant fashion runway. C. Raker & Sons is a wholesale plant propagation specialist based in Litchfield, Mich.

This week’s Gardens Around the Globe feature is set close to home in the gardens of the SEEDS program in Durham, North Carolina. This urban farming leadership development program helps teenagers make healthy food choices, practice organic gardening and learn a variety of business practices.

SEEDS stands for “South Eastern Efforts Developing Sustainable Spaces” and is one of three community gardens in the U.S. honored with a 2010 Nature Hills Nursery Green America Award for making a difference in the Durham community. SEEDS was selected for the First Place Award out of more than 200 applications submitted by community groups, nonprofit organizations and gardening programs across the country. SEEDS will receive $1500 in plants to use in the gardens.

I had the chance to visit SEEDS last September and was able to see groups of teens getting hands-on experience gardening, growing food and learning to respect the land and each other. SEEDS mission is to “help individuals, neighborhoods and communities grow together through gardening, gathering and education.”

Today’s Workshop Wednesday is for gardeners who want to make the switch from liquid  synthetic chemical fertilizers to nature’s best all-natural soil conditioner.

If my early-season planting experiment is a success, I’ll owe it all to Authentic Haven Brand manure tea.

I planted two tomatoes, a ‘Roma’ and an ‘Early Girl’ on April 4, watered them in with manure tea and placed Wall of Water plant protectors around them. They survived several spring snowstorms, freezing overnight temperatures, severe wind gusts and a sudden 90-degree day.

Last week I finally removed the plastic protectors, staked them and gave them both another manure tea party. They look extremely healthy and, if the weather cooperates, I hope the ‘Early Girl’ will live up to her name.

I thought I’d use today’s Workshop Wednesday post as a “How To” for using manure tea in the garden. I’ve written about Authentic Haven Brand premium soil conditioners before and I’m proud to have this product as an advertiser on my site.

I dream of a dish of home-grown, home-made mashed potatoes and took the first steps toward making that dream come true on Sunday when I began the Great Potato Experiment in my garden.

I’ve read all about growing potatoes, I’ve interviewed farmers about growing potatoes and I’ve written their tips for growing potatoes, but this is my first attempt at growing my own.

Because potatoes are supposed to be one of the easiest root crops to grow, I decided to plant a few varieties in my garden this season.

There’s not much room in the vegetable bed for a big crop, so I used some of the planting alternatives I’ve heard about from others: growing potatoes in a trash bag and growing them in a compost bin.

I thought I could improve my chances for success if I ordered Colorado Certified seed potatoes and placed my order with the Potato Garden for 1 pound of organic Caribe and 1 pound of Adora potatoes.