Been a while since the last update. The peas have come and gone. Seemed like we had fewer than last year. I'm pretty sure we planted fewer, so maybe that's not unexpected.
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| Dying peas, removed shortly after |
This is from June 12, already dying. We did get a few meals of peas out of them at least. And the Mrs. whipped up a killer peas soup.
The black raspberries came and stayed for a few weeks and then the birds took care of the leftovers. Did manage to graze a ton of them and gather enough for a pie one day. That was a nice pie.
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| Homemade black raspberry pie |
We've picked about half of the garlic that we sowed last fall. Used a bunch already, very tasty. Although the outer skin is a lot thicker than I remember it being, and the cloves smaller for the most part. I suppose it's the varieties or maybe the weather. I think I'll try a hardneck variety again next year if I can find one. This year was just two random varieties - storebought #1, and storebought #2 (a reddish variety). Here's half the harvest laid out to dry. There's a cleaned up bulb in there for comparison.
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| About half the garlic harvest |
Eggplant is doing better than I last time we grew it. I think last time we got one eggplant per plant, later in the summer. This time I counted about 15 flowers on one plant already.
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| June 12 |
Only growing 1 eggplant in a container (it's doing remarkably well...). It's grow a LOT in a few weeks.
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| June 29 |
Cukes have put on some good growth as well. Right now we have tiny little proto-cucumbers on them, about the size of a paper clip.
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| June 12 |
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| June 29 |
I'm hoping in a couple weeks we'll be making a small batch of refrigerator pickles with our own cucumbers, dill, and garlic.
Peppers were a bit of a disappointment this year. Tried starting around 8 different types from seeds taken out of storebought peppers, only bell, jalapeno, and serrano managed to survive. Only in about the last week have they don't much, and only a few of them. Today I bought a couple Anaheims - we were really hoping to have some of them, we enjoyed them when we lived in southern New Mexico. But none of our seeds sprouted. So I cheated and bought some plants. *hang my head in shame*
I've been in a bit of a love affair with pesto of late. So I've gone big time with the basil. The Mrs. planted a purple variety which is coming along nicely. I've planted some normal sweet basil anywhere I can find space.
And finally, tomatoes. They're coming right along. The ones I started on time in March are looking great. Tigerella have some beautiful clusters of fruit about ping pong ball sized. Sungold is just covered with flowers and little green tomatoes. I think both of those will be perennial favorites unless the taste is sub par. Everything else is coming along, with some flowers.
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| June 12 |
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| June 29 |
Planted a number of leftovers in 5 gallon pails.
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| June 12 |
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| June 29 |
Sungold flowers. Lookit all of em, wowzers.
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| Now that's a cluster of flowers |
Corn is a few feet tall and zucchini is starting to produce.
And finally, a weird mystery veg. I think this is where we dumped the pumpkin after Halloween last year. The bush is HUGE.
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| The mystery beast |
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| Mystery fruit, about 4 inches long |
Oh, and our hops plant is taking over a whole side of the garden fence.
And the crabapples in the parking lot at work are starting to turn red. Soon, apple butter time.
