July 20, 2024
This afternoon I am hopefully awaiting the forecast rainfall. It has been just over a week since the last soaker, and the sky is greying over. If no rain falls, the hoses will be coming out for the first time this summer.
It has been a busy week, squirrelling away blueberries,
picking, then processing raspberries,
frozen and in jam...Processing beans from the first planting. Nine pounds so far.
Cucumbers are growing, and soon it will be pickling time...Looks like the slicers will be first though.
Lots of swelling pumpkins, squash and tomatoes...
Peppers as well.In the 'about to bloom' department...sunflowers. One is head and shoulders over the rest! (The white flags are stinky dryer sheets fluttering in the breeze, to help repel the nuisance deer...may or may not be working, as there has been no sign of her around the gardens for a bit.)
A red (I hope) trumpet vine given to me a few years ago as a sprig...has two big, fat bud clusters, and many smaller ones. The Hummers will be in heaven.Borage is blooming...is there any blue as blue??
Echinacea, daisies, liatris, and day lilies are busting out all over.
All sorts of pollinating insects are swarming the garden blooms, as well as the tall Joe Pye weed that is blooming around the edges of the clearing. There are 4 to 5 Monarch butterflies who seem to be besotted with the tall milkweed plant in my new perennial bed. They are constantly fluttering around it and nectaring on the blooms. I've examined the leaves periodically, and found one very small Monarch larvae so far.
I've picked a few cucumbers, finished the Bibb lettuce, started eating Swiss chard, have the onions and garlic curing. Lots of tomatoes and cucumbers coming along. I eat the carrots as I thin them. So tasty right out of the dirt.
ReplyDeleteHaven't pulled the garlic or onions yet. Onions are still upright, and garlic has only browned off one, maybe two bottom leaves. Love baby carrots. Have 3 successive crops growing, of which the earliest are at eating stage. The lettuce growing in the shade of the cuc fence has not bolted yet. Hooray!
DeleteOh, you are so very far ahead of us. Beans just have blossoms on them, same with the shell peas. Blueberry bushes show pinkish berries on just one of the plants. I planted lemon cucumbers this year plus the regular slicing ones. Don't know exactly what happened to the slicers but the plants are only a mere 4" tall. Still! The lemon cuke vines are 6-8" tall but no sign of blossoms yet. I guess we need one huge greenhouse! :o(
ReplyDeleteSo very good to hear from you, Mama Pea. You are the inspiration for my raised beds from way, way back, and I have learned so much from you.
DeleteThose BB are wild, and ouch! on our backs when picking. I'm thinking of making a blueberry bed and planting BB trees!!! Your garden always comes into it's own..so beautiful. I miss you.
Wow, you have certainly been busy - and doesn't looking at the results give a great feeling of satisfaction?
ReplyDeleteThe garden is looking very productive (veggies and flowers), and I agree with you about the borage flowers. I like to pull the petals off in one pinch (so just the blue parts left) and sprinkle them over salads. They look so pretty, like bright blue stars :)
Yes Margaret, love hearing those jar lids snap down and admiring the rows of jars on the shelves! Have never eaten Borage flowers...will have to add them to our salad. I grow it for the bees and bugs...and the amazing colour.
DeleteGreat harvest, we are having a poor year here.
ReplyDeleteSo sorry to hear that. Mother Nature can be capricious! She has been quite cooperative over here with the weather....so far!
DeleteExcellent photos. Great haul of blueberries! The birds have been beating us to most of ours.
ReplyDeleteThanks Leigh. We should have gone back for more BB, but our backs complained!! A neighbour let us loose in his raspberry patch....what riches! I've never ever had any cultivated raspberries before, only wild ones.
DeleteIt's chock full of goodness over there. I want blueberry pie, and look forward to sunflowers. I have just been think about sunflowers.
ReplyDeleteTis the season, AC! Blueberry pie will be forthcoming later in the year. Consider yourselves invited!
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