Hot, hot, hot here. I've been dipping in to my rain barrel for some supplemental water every day; luckily I still have half a barrel left from our last rain, which was over a month ago. Everything is droopy by 10 a.m.; nothing looks nice during the day! so these pictures were actually taken just before 9 p.m. on June 30, 2015.
We are harvesting the first cherry and slicing tomatoes, sweet and hot peppers, strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, collards, carrots, and romaine lettuce. I expect the tomato glut to begin any time now, but at the moment, it's just one or two every day, and they get eaten quickly. The beans are flowering, so soon it will be bean time. The peppers are starting to get away from us, especially the hot ones. I'm freezing some practically every day.
As always, it's great to just go in to the garden for our meals. Lettuce and tomato on a cheeseburger, collards for a frittata, carrots to go with lunch. I quite like it. And now we are getting five eggs every day (soon, six!), so we always have something to eat if I forget to go to the store. And having our pastured, grass-fed meat delivered to us once a week is also really great. Not only does it taste good, and we know the animals lived a good life, but we're getting interesting cuts of meat which force me to cook different things, and I like that. Tonight we had flap steak. I've never had flap steak before, and it was delicious, especially with Farmer's Market corn (thanks Mom!). Summer on a plate!
So here's your photographic tour of the garden, at the beginning of what is proving to be a hot summer.
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The North Garden, with the chicken coop in the top left.
As you can see, the forefront is dominated by tomatoes. |
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| Hot Peppers |
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| Isis Candy cherry tomato |
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| Sunrise bell pepper |
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| a mini-Butternut squash |
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| Delicata squash |
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the pole bean teepee. If I were a little kid,
I'd want to climb in here. I might yet. |
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Corn. As high as my head, now. The sweet potatoes underneath
are just getting started and you can't see them. |
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| a pretty corn blossom |
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| the apples are almost ripe. Ours ripen quite early, as apples go |
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| parti-colored fig (I can't remember what kind this is) |
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The new pollinator garden is coming along quite nicely.
We've had lots of CA bluebells and borage is just beginning to bloom. |
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South Garden. Sorry for the stray hose. I tend to leave it laying around.
The South Garden is not quite as jungle-y as the North Garden. |
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| Cucumbers |
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| Romaine. The horse manure looks red, as it was a red sunset tonight when I took these. |
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| Potatoes and Nasturtiums |
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| Basil. Time to make and freeze more pesto. |
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| Collards. Clearly I'm not the only creature who finds these delicious. |
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| Carrots |
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Watermelons taking over the world in back;
cantaloupes getting their sea legs in front |
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| We still have strawberries |
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| Over in the parking strip, we are regularly getting raspberries... |
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| ...and the herb mound has exploded... |
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| ...while on the East side we are still getting asparagus spears. |
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It's not all rainbows and unicorns. The deer have decimated anything left
outside the fence. These were sunflowers and hollyhocks. |
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The bees beard in front of the hive in this hot weather
(9 pm and still 96 degrees) |
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| Happy Full Moon! Have you seen Jupiter and Venus? |
I'd love to know what's growing in your garden, where you are!