vacation

We're on vacation this week. I wonder what my garden will look like when I return. Out of control zucchinis? Ripe tomatoes? Overgrown weeds?

my parents' garden

These are some scenes from my parents' garden. Its mid July and the perennials are at their of color and the yard is full of flowers and bees and sunshine.

honeybee on borage flower

Another good use for borage - it attracts honeybees! This is the first honeybee I've seen in my garden this year.

garden chores

This week's garden work included: thin the carrots, beets, kale and chard; tie up the tomato vines and the big dahlia; hill potatoes; wrap squash and cucumber stems with cheesecloth; remove fava plants and plant sunflower seeds in their place; remove the last of the arugula and radishes and plant bush beans in their place; fertilize with GardenTone.

thinned beets and carrots

I thinned my carrots and beets again. The beet greens are yummy mixed with lettuce greens. A few of the carrots were big enough to eat.

Daucus carota beets (Beta vulgaris)

fava crop failure

My favas are gone. I pulled them up today. Though the lady bugs have arrived, the fava beans were just too stunted from black aphid damage to leave growing. (I almost pulled the adjacent pole beans too. These also have aphid damage, but seem to be recovering. I left them for now.) In place of the favas, I planted a mix of sunflower seeds.

I am glad to see the lady bugs, even though they are the big Asian type. They will help to control the green aphids on many of the plants in my garden.


Vicia faba

pumpkin flowers

Lots of big orange pumpkin flowers have begun to bloom this week. They open early in the morning. All male flowers so far.

Last year I planted pumpkins in a big pot and they shriveled and died in the heat of mid July. I told myself, no more potted pumpkins. But here it is - pumpkins in a pot. (Where did I read about the folly and eternal optimism of gardeners?) This year they are in a bigger pot, nice potting soil (instead of last year's garden soil) and they are in semi shade. I have planted them with sunflowers, which they are climbing up. So far, so good. I actually have two big pots with pumpkins and sunflowers. One pot has vines I think are pumpkins (they sprouted in my compost bin), the other has a variety called Howden that I purchased as seedlings.


Pumpkin -- Cucurbitaceae spp.

garlic scapes!

I guess I was wrong about my garlic. A couple weeks ago I concluded they weren't going to make scapes. But look! Scapes. Better late than never.

(Boundary Garlic Farm has good garlic growing info.)

Allium sativum

lettuce

I haven't bought lettuce for a month! (since June 2nd) I am regularly harvesting black-seeded simpson (my favorite), escarole, endive, oak-leaf, and baby romaine. Also, I've started pulling baby beet greens this past weekend. I add garden herbs to our salad: usually dill, cilantro or parsley. I will try some borage soon. (I ran out of arugula and am waiting for a recently seeded crop to grow). We are big salad eaters and its great to have fresh tender greens available daily.

Lactuca sativa

a birthday dinner

I was lucky to have a big harvest and plenty of veggies for making a nice birthday dinner. In the morning I picked a large number of snap peas, some baby beets greens (that badly need thinning) and broccoli, lots of lettuce (I haven't bought lettuce in at least a month now), and some parsley, cilantro, thyme, dill and arugula.

The menu was appetizer: grilled shrimp, dinner: tortellini salad with snap peas, broccoli and greens, rotisseried chicken, and grilled corn-on-the-cob. Of course dessert was birthday cake.

blooming eggplants

topic: eggplant

seven things meme

Wow! 7 random things about us? Skippy and I got tagged in the 7 things meme (by both Ali at Henbogle and Marc at Garden Desk and and we need to list 7 random things about us. You can skip right to the next blog now, before you read on. Its your last chance....

The problem is, it seems most people aren't doing random things (like my favorite color is ...).

Oh well, here goes.

1. My favorite color is blue. (Skippy likes bright yellow. I think. He steals those yellow golf balls.)

2. I went to school for 22 years (I guess it takes some people longer than others...) and I have been married for 27 years. Where do the years go?

3. I have a 14 year old son, a 2 year old dog, 2 sisters, 1 brother, 4 nieces and 3 nephews.

4. I work as a consultant on my patio with my buddy Skippy to analyze data for medical research labs. Its amazing how much virtual research one can do these days.

5. I have lived in Florida (North Palm Beach, Palm Beach Gardens and Lake Park) and eastern and western Massachusetts. That's about it.

6. I don't think it could ever get too hot or too sunny for me. Who knows why I live so far north...

7. My son named Skippy after a Legendary Frog.com cartoon (The One Ring to Rule them All 3). He wanted to name him Snoopy or Odie and I didn't like those names. I wanted to name him Charlie or Jake, and he didn't like those names. We finally agreed on Skippy. In the cartoon, Sauron says to Melcor "If it weren't for you, I'd probably have a good job and a nice little house in the suburbs and a picket fence and little dog names Skippy. Well, that sounds like us!

I think many gardeners have done this meme already. Please don't feel you need to participate. I will tag some of my old favorite and newly found garden bloggers: (I'll eventually add all seven and notify them but this may take me a few days - I'm on vacation!)

- Patrick at Bifurcated Carrots and Root Cause.
- Dr Mom at The Back Quarter Acre.
- Greg at Utah Valley Gardens.
-Tyra at Tyras Trädgård / Tyras Garden.

If you'd like to participate, here are the rules that I copied from Marc at Garden Desk who copied them from Tracy at Outside:

Here are the rules:
Each player starts with 7 random facts/habits about themselves. People who are tagged need to then report this on their own blog with their 7 random facts as well as these rules. They then need to tag 7 others and list their names on their blog. They are also asked to leave a comment for each of the tagged, letting them know they have been tagged and to read the blog.

borage blue

I don't think you can beat the beautiful blue color of borage.

culinary herbs

first chili pepper

I found a little chili pepper today. There are also lots of blossoms setting fruit now. Looks like it will be a good chili crop. The weather is hot and sunny - which I hope will give me spicy hot chilies.

Something is chewing on the leaves a bit. In general, I have a lot of insects in my garden this year. A lot of green and black aphids, white flies, several types of beetles, a lot of black and green flies, a few wasps and a very few bees. I have not done anything about these bugs except photograph them now and then.

Capsicum

fat purple pea pod

My Capucijner peas are getting plump. The vines have grown well past my four foot trellis and are climbing on my garden fence. Lots of fat purple pods are hanging on the vines. Most pods are deep purple, but a few are mottled with green and white.

My dad did tell me that he used to eat soup from this Dutch pea as a child growing up in Heiloo Holland. He remembers that his mom and his grandmother used to make it. He remembers his uncle saying "Heerlijk Capucijner, Jo" to his mother. I told him I'd invite him over when my Capucijner soup is ready.



Pisum sativum