Looking Good So Far

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.

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.

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.

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.

June 12

Only growing 1 eggplant in a container (it's doing remarkably well...). It's grow a LOT in a few weeks.

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.

June 12

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.

June 12

June 29

Planted a number of leftovers in 5 gallon pails.

June 12

June 29

Sungold flowers. Lookit all of em, wowzers.

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.

The mystery beast

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.