I’ve been neglecting my semi-regular garden updates so I figured I’d take a few minutes to bring you all up to speed.

Potatoes and onions…. Check on both counts. The vegetable garden has gone completely mad, the potato plants are past my knees — at least the ones that haven’t matured to the point of dying back and needing to be dug up — and most of the onions have blossom heads on them that I’m snipping off and dehydrating as soon as I find them. I grubbed out one row of leeks that I had left in the ground over the winter (a bad idea in general, they get really woody) and planted sugar snap peas which are just popping up out of the ground. Since there’s an entire row of potato plants that have died off and have potatoes waiting to be dug, once I do that I’m planning on putting in a row of cabbages. Andrew has made me promise to NOT attempt making sauerkraut.
Tomatoes? Check. The plants haven’t gotten to near the height that they have in previous years, but they’re still pretty impressive. One of the contractors that was working at FP this spring gave Andrew four heirloom tomato plants for me and I made my traditional order through Territorial so I’ve got twelve? Fourteen? tomatoes currently crawling up the south side of the house. I wouldn’t have purchased the four plants, I have yet to identify the species of tomato, that we were given, but for freebie plants I’m pleased enough with them. One seems to be a small beefsteak type that is ripening well. The other is kind of a mutant. I’ll be interested to see how the tomatoes off this plant turn out.


On the other hand, after this bugger maybe I’d better be working on figuring out the radium levels in my worm bin. I’ve always said that the worms in my worm bin were nuclear and caffeinated, but I was kinda joking.
Beans? Check-o dude. I’ve already frozen five quarts and pickled six pints of green beans and there are still bunches on the vines that I’m going to let mature into black turtle beans so we can have bean soup all winter.
Cucumbers? Well, that’s another issue. Where last year I couldn’t get one damn plant because the slugs kept coming around and chewing them up as soon as they sprouted, I’ve got plants this year. But for some reason they’re only producing weird little mutant nubbins so far and I’m not sure what else they want to make them happy. At least the nubbins are tasty.
Herbs? Lots. The bay laurel tree is still quite tiny but I have faith. I’ve also still got a quart bag of bay leaves from Mom’s last pruning of her bay laurel so we’ve plenty of time to let our baby bay grow up. If anyone is interested in mint, savory, lemon balm, or rosemary, please let me know.
I cheated this spring and purchased beet starts instead of beet seeds. For whatever reason beets are one thing that I’ve never been able to start reliably. The baby beets enjoyed being in the front herb bed and Andrew and I have been snarfing down beet greens with great enthusiasm. The first batch of pickled beets is brewing in the fridge, the second batch is still pending.
Pumpkins? Yup. Not a bunch, but enough of the adorable little green and orange “Batwings” pumpkins to have enough for pies and pumpkin soup. Enough of the Wyatt’s Giant (one that Anastasia picked out) that there should be some huge pumpkins to carve come Halloween.

But the best part of my edible garden experience this summer?
I’ve got cantaloupes! 😛 Yes, they’re currently still quite green and only about the size of my fist, but since they’re only supposed to be about the size of a softball at maturity……
Hee hee! I grew cantaloupes!

The front flower garden that took up so much of Sheri’s and my time last summer is an absolute joy. There are new scents and new blossoms every week and there have been since early this spring. There are bees, ranging from huge fat bumble bees to wee tiny little Spitfire bees with metallic green heads, everywhere. The bees tend to go for the yarrow, the sunflowers, and the lavender. The butterflies, we haven’t actually attracted many big ones, but have an enormous population of teeny little orange guys and a bunch of wispy white ones that I think are cabbage whites, go for the catmint, the germander, and the chamomile (a volunteer, we didn’t actually intend to plant any). The hummingbirds like the lavender and the lithadora, the finches are having a blast with the sunflowers and the poppies, and Andrew and I spend a lot of time wandering and grinning. This garden is so much what we wanted and is so well put together for the space. Come over and smell anytime. Sit on the edges of the raised beds and watch the bees. It’s really peaceful and it smells good.