Less than two months after planting our Japanese eggplant and jalapeño pepper, we were able to harvest a handful of each vegetable.

Jeanne Nolan, The Organic Gardener founder, stops by Chicago Tonight's studio to talk about our organic vegetable garden and how this summer’s unusual weather has affected gardens. While the gardening season is well underway, Nolan shares which crops can still be planted this season.

The cold, wet summer has made it a difficult season for tomatoes, according to Jeanne Nolan. “Tomatoes don’t like too much water or cold weather,” Nolan said. “There have been some nights that have dropped down into the 50s.”

In early June, we planted four zucchini seeds, with the intention of only allowing one seed to grow in the garden. Now, I see why we only have one zucchini in the garden.

Today I spent most of my time in the garden tending to the tomatoes, training them to grow within the Texas Tomato Cages.

Last week, we posted several time lapse GIFs of our garden showing its growth over a month. While most days it doesn’t seem like the crops grow very much, looking at the garden it seemed like many of the crops experienced a growth spurt overnight. 

Plants need water to grow, but too much water can be a problem. While we can control our watering of crops, we can’t control how much it rains, and so far this season it has rained a lot.

While obvious signs of growth were not apparent day to day, Chicago Tonight producers took photos of our garden beds on a daily basis to track the growth of crops. See how much our garden has grown in a month.

Plenty of peppers have started popping up in our garden. Approximately two weeks ago the first pepper – a jalapeño pepper – popped up.

One week ago, we began harvesting the radishes and arugula in our garden. Today, we harvested the remainder of those crops.

This morning a deer was spotted in the WTTW/WFMT parking lot. While Jeanne Nolan said deer are possible pests her clients have to deal with, I’ll admit I didn’t think I’d see one in the city.

Approximately one month from now is the earliest we can begin harvesting the Japanese eggplant in our garden. Yesterday, I spotted at least five eggplants in various stages of growth in the garden.

The crops in our garden have been growing so much that we’ve had to do some more thinning. “Thinning can be tedious, but in a small space you can do it,” Jeanne Nolan said. “Three weeks after planting is a good time to thin.”

A few days ago, I spotted a few radishes poking above the soil in our garden. Prior to planting, Jeanne Nolan said that when radishes are ready to be harvested they will poke out of the soil.

Last night, the Chicago area was pummeled with torrential rains and strong winds as severe storms swept through the area. The powerful storms brought down trees and power lines in some areas.

The hot, humid weather over the past week has allowed our plants to thrive. Less than a month after planting, I spotted several radishes poking out of the soil.