July 2014: The State of the Garden

Scarlet Runner pole beans going nuts on some sunflowers.

Next year: plant the sunflowers 2 or 3 weeks earlier.

Why do they call it a Black Krim tomato if it's red? But it IS yummy. 

Cherokee Purple tomatoes. Presumably they'll be purple later.

Kind of wimpy carrots. I don't understand. Carrots were epic the last few years. This year, they're wimps.

Garlic is doing great, though. 

 Kale is going nuts. 

 Onions seem to be thriving.

Rhubarb is ready for its third harvest of the season. 

Poor sage. hidden among the dill and zucchini. 

Winter squashes are going for the gold.

As are the summer squash.

Summer Seed Harvesting

These are kale seeds.

a) These make more seed pods than I expected. Don't let so many go to seed next year.

b) They take a terribly long time to mature. Looking like it will be all year.

c) They need to be propped up.

Leek flower, before opening. The east side of the garden.

















Leek flower in full bloom. Same day as above. West side of the garden. You can see one of the honeybees feasting here.

Leeks were a big hit last year.

White onion flower. Gonna have lots of onion seeds, too.

We Has Beez

Neighbor is a beekeeper. We're hosting a hive. Happy little girls.

They don't like going into the greenhouse, so I don't count on their pollenating there, but outdoors, they're doing a great job.

Bringing more hanging plants out of the greenhouse for their ministrations.

Hanging Plants

I've been hanging a number of plants. Some have worked better than others.

This is an Armenian cucumber. Complete fail. 

This, too, is an Armenian cucumber. It's happy as a clam at high tide.

I believe this one was a larger, healthier plant when I stuck it in the hole in the bottom of the pot.

Basil (Genovese). It looked like it was going to fail, but basil doesn't love transplanting anyway. It's turning around (literally and metaphorically). We'll see how well it does.

I just fed it with blood meal. 

Chocolate cherries. Happy! 

More chocolate cherries. More happiness.

This size pot needs a lot of watering when it has a good size tomato plant in it.

Sweet Millions. One of the two starts I bought this year. First ripe cherry tomato July first. Very, very happy. And very thirst

Tomatillo underneath. herbs above. I don't remember what the tall one upstairs is.

This doesn't take nearly as much water.

This is an incredible summer.