Harvest

I am not growing much food in the garden this year, but there are a few items I cling to. Besides the cukes and zukes, there are green beans as well. Despite the plethora of farmers markets around here, I still think fresh-picked from my own garden tastes best.

Zucchini blossom

Zucchini

Cucumber blossom

Cucumber

There are several beds devoted to dye plants. Initially, it pained me to nip off all the blossoms, but miraculously, the next day there are more! The hollyhocks are about done, though.

Cosmos sulphereous, dyers coreopsis, black hollyhock

I wait for the hollyhock blossoms to fall on the ground before harvesting them; if you pick them off the stalks, you just might end up with an angry Japanese beetle on your hands. The other day, I watered the hollyhock before picking up the fallen blossoms, and the buds bled blue. I'm excited about dyeing with them.

Must be August

In June, the gardener knows it will be a while before she reaps. In July, the harvest begins. In August, more of the long-awaited crops come to fruition, plus the fall plantings start to grow.

Onion harvest - Copra and Red Zeplin

Burpless Beauty cucumber, growing vertically

Matt's Wild Cherry and Black Cherry tomatoes

Honey and Cream sweet corn

The pumpkin in the tomato bed keeps getting bigger and more orange

Pumpkin vine trying to escape the confines of the garden

Purple Pod pole beans, for fall harvest (fingers crossed)

I love mixing some flowers in amongst the veggies. The bees friend finally bloomed, so now we know what they look like. The zinnias will add color through the rest of the season.

Bee's Friend

Lilliput Mix zinnias

Fall planting

This past week, we had one of those horrible 90-degree days when the air is barely breathable. Just one. This morning, the weather felt almost autumn-like. A good reminder to get the fall garden planted.

In the past, before retirement (BR), I didn't always plant a fall crop of anything, as I was usually knee deep in tomatoes by now. Also, while gardening is always unpredictable, fall is more so. For one thing, most of what gets planted likes cool weather and August is usually anything but cool. Then, just as the temps start to moderate, frost may occur. So fall plantings are more of a crap shoot than spring or summer, but it's hard to resist an empty bed.

In the sixteen squares above, I planted roots - beet, rutabaga, turnip, carrot, radish - plus lettuce and spinach and kale and broccoli, all from seed. Since the pole beans were not able to complete with the corn and pumpkin, I also planted some of those in their own bed, as well as a short row of snap peas behind the endamame (which are languishing under pumpkin vines).

Speaking of pumpkin, the two varieties I planted continue their attempt to dominate the entire garden. I found this big boy in the tomato bed, a good 25 feet to the SSE of where the vines started.

Its smaller cousin breached the corn. I planted two varieties, both supposedly small, and now I am not sure which is which. I *think* the green ones are Rouge Vif d'Etamps while the orange ones are Burpee small(?!?) sugar.

Joining the pumpkin is butternut squash. While not quite as sprawling as the pumpkin, it too is doing its best to wander far and farther.

And, as far as squash is concerned, size *does* matter.

Just ask the zucchini.

We ate at Five Guys last night. I said I didn't care where we ate, as long as they did not serve zucchini. Or cucumbers (except as pickles).

Actually, I like zucchini and have been trying out all kinds of new and unusual dishes, courtesy of the Internet. More on that later. Right now it is time for my afternoon nap.

I lied

I found a cucumber underneath all the neighboring zucchini foliage and it's a big 'un!

I'm temporarily without my landline, which means no FIOS Internet. I am posting this using my T-Mobile phone as a hot spot. Works pretty well, which makes me wonder just how much I need FIOS, other than for streaming Netflix. Hmm.