Ready for 4th of July?

It's a long weekend ahead of us and of course that means BBQ and maybe trip to the lake but it also means whole new set of veggies ready to be picked. I'm looking forward to trying our first cucumbers. They're coming along just fine! Something new to try this 4th of July weekend - buttercrunch lettuce to put on top of the burgers and in salads. We've had plenty of Romaine before but this one is new to me. At least I'll know if I should plant them next year. Also we got first Ichiban eggplant finally fruited and will be ready to pick by the weekend. Plant also has bunch of blooms on it so I'm hoping that this is just first of many to come in the next two months.

There are actually two of plants and both have baby eggplants hanging on them, which is great because my sister will be here for a week so she can eat them. I know she's looking forward to picking some of the greens like peas and blueberries, carrots and tomatoes. Today I picked some sweet peas. garlic scapes and first yellow wax beans but I won't be picking anything else for next few days so she can do that herself over the weekend.

And of course there's second wave of strawberries coming along and more various lettuces that I planted. Here you can see red lettuce growing next to the strawberry bush. My DF will have his berries and I have my salads so everyone wins :o)

Pretty Flowers

Well summer is officially here and it means flowers, flowers and more flowers! As if my garden wasn't in bloom before, summer flowers started to open up. In my enclosed garden I planted bunch of gladiolus along the main wall - mixed between all those peas. Well they've been growing and many have flower shoots and this morning I found out that one has opened up.

Isn't it pretty? Now I can't wait to see them all open. I counted at least 7 shoots all along the wall and they'll be all different types. There's mix of purple, white and reds so it should be very pretty. Maybe next year I'll look for larger types but for now this works just as well.

Next harvest wave...

There is always something that is getting ripe and ready to pick in the garden. In spring it's lettuces, arugula, spinach, sorrel and radishes. Then come strawberries. Now it's time for scallions..

Next week we'll have cucumbers - they're in bloom and have baby cucs forming already. Tomatoes will be ready in about a week as well. I just have to figure out what to do with this overload. These will go into salad.

Bell pepper has been ripening slowly but surely and will be picked soon. It's been a bit too rainy so they didn't want to form but now that it's hot and humid they're forming like crazy. I think we'll have several of them closer to august.

First baby yellow squash formed so it also should be ready for picking within a week. Once they form and bloom it only takes few days to get to pick-and-eat stage. And then there is my daily snack - sugar peas. They are continuously in bloom and I pick few of them each day. And it's going to be like this for most of the summer. Did I mention that this is only a beginning for tomatoes??

Ack! Anyone has any suggestions how to make great tomato sauce? On the other hand they make my garden look so nice and lush!

Don't blink...

People often wonder how long does it take to grow your own produce. Well that depends on what you're trying to grow. There are some items that take longer - like potatoes and onions. They will be ready closer to the end of summer. And then there are "quickies" - things that grow like weeds and ready for picking in no time. Remember when I spilled lettuce seeds?

And this is how it is today - ready to pick fully grown romaine lettuce. And daily picking for me for our dinner salad. Oddly enough these are doing far better than the ones I planted in a row. Maybe next time I should do the same :o)

Radishes are even faster! You can go from seeding to harvesting within 4 weeks if you start early in spring. But don't bother planting seeds in summer because radishes don't like heat. Instead of developing nice radish-root they'll just go into bloom and you won't have any harvest.

Groundhog damage

There you go day after day taking care of your little garden. One morning you admire how green and lush it's getting and go do your other business during the day. Just to come home and in horror realize that your garden has been ransacked. Well not my enclosed garden because the fence protects it for most part. But my container garden has been under attack from a groundhog. This used to be my parsley. It was so nice and I was thinking that this weekend I'd clip it and get it dried for later. Nope. Not going to happen. Groundhog had it himself for lunch. He also ate some of my peppers, all green beans leaves and all peas that were under my bushes.

And this were my golden beets. I planted them late but still hoped to get them going. What he didn't eat he trampled them down to get to parsley. Can't say how upset this makes me.

Ok, so I still have new parsley growing in the garden but that won't be ready for picking for quite a while. I hope the container one will bounce back and that beans will recover their lost leaves and will produce something later on. Now I have to figure out how to keep him off my patio.

Share the bounty

Sometimes you learn what to plant and how much of it you'll need as you go along. For example I know next year not to plant whole row of arugula because we just can't keep up with it when it's in prime. The same goes for my sorrel and snap peas. Next year I will plant only few bushes of snap peas for stir frying and the rest will be sugar peas for eating.

Because you really don't need that many for stir-fry and they're not very tasty to eat raw. But lesson learned and while it's still growing I use what I can and remaining is given away. The same is with today's quick pick.

This is sorrel and dill that will be going to my DF's secretary along with some peas. The dill has been so prolific that I've been cutting it down and drying for later use and just storing in old spice containers. Once dry it's good to keep for long time and is good flavoring when cooking meals. I also picked first carrot to try it out - very sweet though a bit small so will have to wait couple more weeks to pick the rest.

No Sunflowers for me

This week has been disappointing to say the least. I lost all my sunflowers that I planted in the outside bed together with cucumbers. They were growing so nicely and were over 2 feet high. And now that's all that was left of them.

That's right, deer ate them all. Just left the stems half way through so now they're useless. And I was really hoping to try them this year. Ironically they're listed as 'safe' to be planted in deer-heavy area because they have fuzzy leaves and deers don't like them. Well they obviously haven't met our deers who also like to eat our potato greens - something that's also listed as safe.Here is one caught red-handed on the spot helping herself to my potato greens. I guess it's a lesson for me for next year - cover everything with netting regardless of what's planted.