Garden

The Garden

So far, 2010 has been a pretty good year for the garden - the tomatoes have been incredible. Our first run of corn wasn't that great, but I tried an experiment. Our second run of corn is about 6 inches tall right now, there are over 100 plants up and all looks well. We planted this variety before - it's an heirloom white kernel corn called country gentleman. In a couple weeks, we will be trying a baby corn variety - have to plan it so that they aren't tasseling or silking at the same time. Green chiles and bell peppers are doing really well, sunflowers all have scarlet runner beans and green beans planted beneath them. The beans climb the sunflowers and after the sunflower heads are harvested, the plant is left in til the beans are done. There are 4 different cucumbers - spacemaster 80, lemon, white and an heirloom bush variety. Several squash have volunteered - pumpkins, butternut, spaghetti and delicata (all seeds that I put into the compost bin). We planted black beauty zucchini (they can get over 5 lbs and not be seedy!) and a straight neck yellow, cantaloupe, moon & stars watermelons, orange watermelons, and personal watermelons.

The asparagus trench took forever to dig, but it was certainly worth it - think about half of the crowns were 2 or 3 year crowns. Planted Jersey Giant and Sweet Purple. The peach and fig trees are progressing nicely (they're still tiny - the fig tree has 4 figs on it) and the eggplants & artichokes are moving slow. Broccoli, cauliflower, brussels sprouts and kale are all making it through the summer OK so far. Let the spinach and lettuces go to seed to see when and where they plant themselves. The peas caught powdery mildew, so we had to rip them out to keep that from spreading around. They do best in cooler weather anyway.

The Asparagus bloomed -

The yellow pear tomatoes and red pear tomatoes crossed a little

Heirloom red okra - I eat it right off the plant - yummy.

The onions and garlic both bloomed - the garlic got pulled out of the ground before the blooms finished, but we've let the onions do their thing and we have onion seeds. yum.

The first round of sunflowers for 2010 - planted these in my own compost and wow - they're 10 feet tall or more! Last year's didn't get far above 6 feet.

Basil with flowers

Cantaloupes - this is a baby

Cherokee tomatoes - this big tomato is now two-hands-full big!

cucumber

garden

yellow pear tomatoes

zucchini

The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown! This is a variety that predates 1700 and it grows about 3 feet at night. The crazy thing wants to take over the yard, but I'm not letting it - It is AMAZING how big it's gotten so quickly.

Day's harvest for 7/14/09

The Murderer of the Pollinator Bees - Robber Fly! They are very quick.

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