Disappointments

Well, another sub par year. Got started late, not a lot of redundancy. I do have a nice batch of Roma tomatoes in the area right by the front patio stairs. Had some zucchini, but they died out. Got a grand total of 3 *sad trombone*. I think critters got at them. Maybe mice. Maybe rabbits! I definitely saw a rabbit escaping from the area when I rounded a corner. The start up was late, I tried planting seeds directly in dirt and did not get a solid sprouting, sadly. Peppers were pretty disappointing, but I got a few New Mexico types growing. Should get a couple pounds. Miraculously grew some huckleberries from seed. Got a couple plants. Not a huge harvest, but been picking and freezing, saved up about a pint, will make something with them. Also grew something called an orange variety, they have a distinct taste, but not very pleasant. I wonder if there is a use for them. I've just been letting them go. Couple eggplants grew, but I don't see any activity that looks like fruit. I abandoned garlic, weeds overtook them, I just harvested a couple days ago. Just terrible. Small heads, some broke apart on harvest. The Jerusalem artichoke patch is booming, I will harvest some soon, see what I get. I planted none, I did nothing, not even watering.

I got some more strawberries, and bought a row cover and frame to keep the varmints out. That seemed to work. I got a few berries. Also had some eaten off by something. Perhaps need to clamp down the row cover a bit better to protect them. Maybe do better next year. I saw a bunch of blueberries, but they got got by something before I got any. The "serviceberries" are not doing anything like a berry. *shrug*

I think the big take away is that I'm going to put a lot more effort in next year and see what I can get. Thinking about a few things, like raised beds (the big metal ones). The row covers did a pretty good job with the strawberries, maybe see how that goes if I expand it. Maybe make some nice removable panels to keep deer out of the stuff along the driveway. Anyway, will make another post called 2027 planning that will keep track of what I'm thinking..

Huckleberries

Seeds in Dirt!

 As prep I filled three window boxes with soil from the composter. Brought that in a week or so ago. This past weekend I planted some seeds in it directly - no sprouting on wet paper towels this time around. We'll see how it works. Planted three types of tomatoes - Roma, Spoon, and Cherokee Purple. Ping Tung Long, the long purple eggplants. Ground cherries. Something called orange berries. Huckleberries. Four types of hot peppers - Jalapeno, Cayenne, Serrano, and Anaheim.

I've still got one long box unplanted, I think I will stop at the hardware store and get some more tomato seeds. Need some cherry tomatoes at least. I've also gotten out the peas and zucchini which I think I can plant soon. Predictions have Thursday as the last day to have freezing temps this month. So maybe we will be good after that. I've got plenty of seeds so I will probably plant this weekend and hope for the best. 

We are underway!

Some Small Efforts

 Well, the fracking deer noshed on my Jerusalem artichokes. I mean, they left a significant amount of leaves, so I think they will recover.

Deer molested Jerusalem artichokes

Why do they eat only the things I plant? They never eat weeds. Deer, frustrating me for almost 20 years now. And no sign at all of the yams I planted there. Maybe something will sprout, or maybe that's a big failure.

Next planter up is some volunteer garlic and some kale. The kale all bolted, I didn't get much from it. I'm not too optimistic about the garlic either, but what the heck.

Next up are the potatoes. I guess 8 plants. Maybe 11? Anyway, they are doing great. Seeing some flowers.

Taters

Not too weedy despite the neglect I have offered them since planting (been sick for like a month, yuck).

Next planter is all kale, all bolted.

Final planter is full of weeds. I was thinking maybe green beans.

Rolling up the yard to the zucchini trench, things are going a bit better. Seeing zucchini flowers, and some babies.

My baby!

These zucchini are real troopers. The foliage beneath the big ol' zucchini leaves is rather thick! It vaguely leads me to wonder if the density of weeds has any impact on the ability of bugs to get in there. Probably not. It would probably be far better to clear out the weeds and the old dead leaves. It is on the to do list. The plants are looking great though, weeds and all.

Zucchini blowin' up

Tomatoes a little further up the yard are doing great. They always do great in these little cutouts attached to the deck. And enough rain that no varmints are chewing into the stems. I have sealed up the holes a bit, so maybe there are no chipmunk caves there this year.

Tomatoes

The only disappointment with the tomatoes is that almost all of them are black cherry. I mean, those are good, but so is variety. They seemed to be hit less by critters - perhaps the critters couldn't keep up with the abundance. One black cherry produces 750 million tomatoes, while I only get a few from like a mortgage lifter. And the varmints get them before I do.

One task that I did do today was to cut some cloth strips and tie up the tomatoes I put in buckets in the back yard. These guys are doing even better than the front yard ones, which is most unusual!

Back yard. No cukes here this year.

Hot peppers are growing. Leaves are getting eaten a bit. Maybe slugs? Perhaps I should put out a beer trap for them.

Basil needs to be thinned. Seems to be doing ok. Chick peas are growing nicely. Hopefully the deer never find them. I've eaten a few pea pods. Num.

Rainy Days

 Been very rainy lately, so I haven't had to water much. It has been warm lately, though it's 54 F today. I've been doing garden work sporadically, mostly on the weekends when I have free time. Lots still to do, but I guess I should congratulate myself on what I've done so far. I made a list of remaining work to do last post, and since then I've planted the rest of my tomatoes in pots. There are still a few of them unplanted, mostly the smaller stragglers, maybe 5 or 6 plants. I think I'll plant those in the back side plot. A small plot currently with some peas in it. But the peas sprouted in two clumps, leaving space for a few tomatoes. I also put some tomato cages in with the peas for them to climb on. Also managed to find some Jerusalem artichokes on Etsy of all places. Today I may try to sprout some garbanzo beans. So four items checked off my to do list, not bad at all!

I decided to order some fabric grow bags to see how I like those. I basically have an unlimited supply of soil available in my backyard up by the tree line. I've dug out a rather deep hole where the compost heap is/was to fill up my various buckets. But I could easily do 50 times that much without it being noticeable. So anyway I ordered 10x 10 gallon fabric bags. Much cheaper than buckets. Haven't decided exactly where to put them, but probably some on the front porch, some on the back porch, maybe a few on the side of the house. I think I'll try to plant a variety of things and see how it goes. Beans for sure. Maybe some lettuce. Cucumbers would be nice to have.

I took a look back through previous years of the blog to see how Mays past looked. I think we're in pretty good shape this year. In a few previous years I was farther along with tomatoes and zucchini, but mostly behind where I am now.

Some pictures.

Kale in planter by the front door. Planted last year

Volunteer tomato growing the front steps

Potato bed

Potatoes!

Zucchini

Garlic

Tomatoes already flowering

Peas. Suspect I'll get some but not a bumper crop

More tomato flowers

Growth in four days. Noticeable!

A little garden work

 Today was a bit of garden work. Cleaned out some of the vine in the rock garden. Crazy, it was fine last year and now it seems overgrown. The tomatoes there were mostly deer and chipmunk food, which was disappointing. I may see if I can just grow zucchini there. Deer don't seem to prey on zucchini as much.

Also spread some diatomaceous earth around a bunch of plants. It's been very wet here, I figure slugs will be out in no time. But nothing yet. They really crippled the zucchini last year. May put out some beer to draw them in.

All the peppers are planted now. They don't seem super happy. Maybe a bit of transplant shock, oof. I've got about 6 or 7 buckets that will be home to some tomatoes.

Tomatoes do seem happy in the patio wells by the driveway. That seems to be a great spot for them.

Planted some potatoes. Dug out one of the garden beds by the driveway. Two more are empty, I'm thinking sweet potatoes and beans. Another one has garlic, doing great. The last one has kale which overwintered and seems to be perking up. Also some garlic. I have no clue if it's some extras I planted or volunteers from the year before.

TO DO LIST

• Maybe get some different tomatoes/peppers/something else from a nursey.
• Get those remaining black cherry tomatoes in buckets.
• Some more strawberries? Weed the strawberry bed. Some trellis for the peas in there.
• Trellis the other peas.
• Plant some beans
• Plant some more kale. I feel like the overwintered stuff is all bolting already
• Plant some zucchini in the rock garden.
• Turn the pizza oven base into a planter.
• Prune brush in rock garden and the old garden.
• Plant sun flowers out front
• Find Jerusalem artichokes
• Get straw for strawberries
• The asparagus is still alive! Clear out that area of the old garden.
• Plant the berries. They are off to a great start this spring, but one of the blueberries is not so happy. Better get them in the ground. But where???
• Rescue some black raspberries.
• Plant chives
• See if garbanzo beans I got will sprout

New Year in the Garden

 Just to start off, I have been making breakfast sandwiches to take to work quite regularly. For bread I use focaccia mostly, though occasionally Abreaducation white bread. Most days I grab a handful of raw or sometimes frozen spinach and cook it in a little butter until it's unfrozen/wilted. Then I crack a couple eggs in the pan and cover until it sets up a bit, then flip. After that I turn off the burner and put on two thick slices of yellow deli cheddar and cover again. This melts it nicely and doesn't overcook.

This years gardening got off to a decent start. I ordered some seeds and planted a few types of tomatoes and peppers. I figured I would start a few types, get some more seeds and start some other types. Well, it did not work out that way, so I have two types of tomato plants this year, Black Cherry and Sungold. I think I will be disappointed not to have a slicing tomato variety. And no sauce tomato either, though I could certainly make sauce from the two cherry varieties. One other benefit is that it seems like the prolific output of cherry tomatoes outpaces the chipmunks thievery. Did not get many of the sungold to come up. Only about 7 or 8 plants. But the black cherry plants went hog wild.

Black Cherry

I also tried ground cherries. But none of them sprouted. Not sure what I'm doing wrong with them. Had them one year and haven't worked out much since.

Also one variety of peppers popped up. I think it was "Highlander" a New Mexico green chile type. Got a few plants, not enough to go wild, but I'll hopefully have some.

Green Chile

Also went a little nuts on basil. I'm a bit excited about basil this year. I think I'll plant it here, there, everywhere, in the ground, in containers, all over. Be nice to make a good haul of pesto. Some are doing better than others, but they're all mostly just barely sprouted.

Basil

Current plan is buckets near the house for tomatoes. The deer don't like getting that close.

The rock garden landscaping fabric mostly held up, but it's going to take some work to get it suitable for planting. Lots of vines grow in there. I think I'll plant zucchini there, deer seem less likely to eat that.

Have some peas sprouting up. I built a small raised bed out of the posts I tore down from the fenced in garden. That's got peas and strawberries surrounded by chicken wire. Something ate some of the peas that sprouted. Deer maybe. So I put up the chicken wire and that seems to have put a stop to the predation. 

Got 8 tomatoes growing in the wells by the stairs in the front and a bunch of zucchini in the trough out front. Garlic in one of the raised beds by the driveway. Kale in another, and some kale in the little planters by the house. The kale all survived the winter, it was very impressive.

Also have some berry bushes that survived the winter in pots! Blueberries and serviceberries. Also some gooseberries that I transplanted out of the old fenced in garden before the landscapers cleared it.

So lots going on. As always, never quite get to all the things I want to do, but if I get half of the stuff I've gotten started it'll be nice.

Productive Weekend, Yet Not Productive

 There was a ton to do this weekend, I'm a bit behind. Peppers need to be transferred out of the big ol' troughs so they grow a bit better. I did prep some buckets for them, need to transplant though. That's the plan for Detil, Cayenne, Korean Dark Green, and Buena Mulata. And I need to figure out a spot for the New Mexico peppers. Hmmm. There are 4 unoccupied stone planters out front. Probably one will be beans, one will be kale, and the other two not sure. So those are possible spots. Also perhaps the little brick planters on the deck by the house for a few. That would work nice if it doesn't get too hot. There are probably 20 of them, so I can certainly experiment a bit.

I planted cukes as well. Youtube guru said the burpless varieties are less prone to bugs and mildew, so I got a few of those. For reference here is the setup with the buckets.

Also have a few straggler tomato plants left. No reason not to put them out in the rock garden. Seems like the tomatoes I currently have in the rock garden are loving it there.

Other random plans... There's a big spot in the rock garden cleared, and two other spots needing to be cleared and landscape fabric'd. I maybe plant up some extra zucchini in one of those. Also need to figure a spot for basil. Perhaps some other herbs. Strawberries are going to go in a planter I'm making out of the remains of the fenced in garden from the back - some long 4"x4" posts that I'm going to make a planter out of. The neighbor says he's putting up a fence, so that makes it a little easier to just put a planter there.

Also vaguely thinking spinach.

We Got Beans Baby!

 So I harvested the jalapeños. The biggest plant provided 266g (9.3oz), all of them together made 449g (15.8 oz, almost a pound!).

Jalapeño harvest

Pretty Jalapeño

Couple Cherokee Purples growing to nice size! Can't wait til they're ripe.

Bean harvest was 424g (15 oz).

Pretty beans

Also a big ol' haul of kale.

I also went a little nuts this year in an attempt to save my poor zucchini from vine borers. I purchased some bt (pesticide, but organic) and a large hypodermic needle. I had gone out earlier today and pulled off a few dead/dying/yellowing leaves and discovered some of the buggers. Some notes: 

• They were smaller than I expected. The smallest was like 1 cm long and about as big around as the head of a pin. I think the "surgery" idea for control of these pests would not work that well - one that I found was waaaaaay up the stem, and would have been hard to find something that small. The biggest one I found was maybe 2cm, big around as a small pea.
• I have a LOT of plants for the injection approach. I injected a lot of stems, but I'm sure I did not get them all.
• I whipped up 2 liters of the stuff. I think I went over the recommended amount of bt per 2 liters. When I was done injecting, I poured the extra over outside of the stems.
• Need to repeat weekly.
• I will pile up some dirt over the lower part of the stems. Perhaps new roots form.
• If this saves my zucchini I will be a very happy camper.

Some Repotting

 So I've got two locations that I refer to as "compost heaps". The first is a black plastic container in the near back yard that mostly gets grass clippings and weeds pulled elsewhere in the yard. That does a pretty good job of turning that stuff into compost. I have not been truly scientific about it, it doesn't have the right ratios of "green" to "brown" materials, but it make a nice rich puffy soil. Out back further is a pile near the tree line of mostly grass clippings and overflow waste when the black container is full. Also makes nice fluffy compost. Today I pretty much emptied the black plastic compost heap filling up various containers, some two gallon buckets I got from work (originally used to carry pre-shelled hard boiled eggs), some plant pots, and the bottom half of a recycling container that got sliced up the side and didn't work anymore for its intended purpose.

White Powder is bone meal.

I pulled one garlic plant that was clearly done.It is pretty small, but usable.

At this point, the remaining plants are running low on places to go.I think I will try to fill a few more containers to try to salvage as many peppers as possible. I do have some room in the kale bed - I could put a few tomatoes there. Also the garlic is almost done, I could put a few there. If history is any guide, the ones I transplant last generally produce hardly any tomatoes.

I decided to see if I could make a comparison picture of the tomatoes since I transplanted them and ran into a picture from last year.

There's a bit to unpack here. Firstly, They seem to have put on a lot of growth in just 11 days! The weather has been alternately sunny and hot then rain, so plenty of light and plenty of water. But compared to two weeks earlier last year they seem positively anemic. Last year I don't have an exact date for when I started the seeds, but it was about the first week of March. This year it was the second week of April. Also I did not prune last year, or put up cages even. By the end of the season they were draped over the side of the planter and not very happy looking. This year I am savagely pruning. And I was good about getting cages up.

Plans: 2022

 So I've got a rough idea of what I'll be planting this season. Here's a quick sketch.

2022 garden plan

To flesh this out a bit, the garlic was planted last fall and is still growing. Honestly not doing too great, about a dozen bulbs, though I planted quite a bit more. When that is done and harvested I may put in some sugar snap peas later in the season. 

The raspberries are volunteers. Looks like quite a vigorous patch. We'll see if the chipmunks let me have any. Might not be them stealing them. Not certain.

Zucchini - I added some compost there. They did ok last season and I think they'll do very well this year. They are already springing up and I just planted the seeds. 

Squash will either be hubbard, butternut, or zucchino rampicante (like a zucchini variant that does not have hollow stems and does not succomb to vine borers). If I can clear out some of the old rock garden behind the house I may plant some more of these back there.

Sunflowers are really nice, spruce up the house nicely and make the birds happy. Also a tribute to Ukraine! I need to dig this bit up before I can plant.

Kale will be from my own seeds that I saved from previous years. Kale does really well. In fact I got some that sprung up in last years bed that I transplanted to the Kale/Long Beans patch in the back. In that patch long beans are against the fence of chicken wire with kale in the front.

Cucumbers got a few varieties, mostly pickling types. Maybe lactoferment them if I get a nice haul. Tried that over the winter and they turned out pretty great.

Tomatoes I have planted most of the numbered ones. Brandywine is all but dead, I have some replacements, we'll see how they do. Overflow and extras in the bed along the driveway, will plant 4-6 in that. Also will plant some cherry tomatoes in pots on the front porch. Varieties I've got - Hungarian, Roma (only one of these came up - disappointing!), Beefsteak, A Grappoli D'Invierno (didn't even order these, just a free gift with my seed purchase. They are BOOMING!), Cherokee Purple (best tasting), Mortgage Lifter, Brandywine, Spoon (tiny tomatoes, like berry sized apparently), Black Cherry, Barry's Crazy Cherry, and a couple others. Should make for an interesting variety. This year I am getting my act together and getting the cages up early, so they should do better. Right? Maybe?

Green beans did very well last year.

Small brick planters near the house - two of them have flowers, peonies and lilies that I want to leave. They don't require any effort and come back every year. The other 5 are in varying states of occupied, 2 just have weeds that can easily be pulled, two have move of a lush overgrowth, and one has the stump of a huge old bush. Realistically that one is a lost cause without a ton of effort. Anyway, these will be home to some herbs. Tomatoes didn't do all that well there, lets see how herbs do.

In the back I will have hot peppers in buckets. I kept 7 or 8 over the winter and they all seem to have survived, though some barely clung to life. We'll see how they do compared to the seedlings. Jalapenoes were the ones I overwintered, and I should get a nice haul of those. Couple other varieties, we'll see.

On the side of the house I am going to build a planter with some old beams that were originally part of a fenced in backyard garden. That fell into disuse since there really was not enough sunlight. It's about 12 or 13 years old, and one of the posts fell over, so I need to take it down and clear it all out. Anyway, this will provide 10-11 posts about 8' long that I can use to build a raised bed on the side. Again this is a bit of a high effort project, so we'll see how far it gets.

Nice progress!

The weather has been hot and sunny and the plants are loving it. I'm babying them and making sure they have plenty of water. I'm very happy I got those four tomato plants out early, they are really flourishing.

The basil is starting to overgrow it's planter. Now I get to see how well it transplants.

Something ate a few bean plants, so I hopped into action and built them their own fortress.

Rutgers. Getting very bushy. I should probably prune a bit to keep them happy.

Brandywine in back, Cherokee Purple in front. Lots of flowers!

  

Like this!

Strawberries still hanging out in the basement.

Garlic starting to get close to being ready for harvest.

Kale bolted. They did survive the winter.

Most of my peppers look like this. After transplanting they slumped over, then recovered in a day or two, but kept their bad posture.

Back in Action

 Last year with the COVID and mom's declining health were not good for garden exploits, I didn't even grow any tomatoes for the first time in... 10 years maybe? But I did get set up for future garden exploits. I bought a load of cement bricks that could, from a distance, in the right light, look like stones. They make much more attractive planters than I could have managed with wood. And they will be there for years to come with little to no maintenance, which is a huge plus. And it was a nice outdoor project for me and the boys.

So now I have 5 stone planters, each about 5' x 3', suitable for raised bed gardening. I'm slowly enriching the soil with compost and leaves stolen from neighbors leaf piles left at the curb for collection. Last years crops were fairly unexciting. Zucchini, another zucchini, Kale, potatoes, and cucumbers. Zucchini did fairly well before it succumbed, as always, to bugs. Potatoes, as usual, was a fairly paltry crop. I need to do more to figure out how to make them happy. Cucumbers were nice, did not get a ton of them, but a nice supply for salads. Kale? OMG. I ate so much kale. A direct seeding of basil utterly failed. Maybe the seeds were old? Not sure where it went wrong.

I did end the season strong though with one planter loaded with garlic planted a week or two into November. They not only survived the winter, they flourished. I put down a little straw to keep the weeds at bay, and I did weed a bit once, but otherwise they are pretty contented.

Garlic looking happy.

The kale not only survived the winter, it seems happier this year. Did my first mini harvest today.

Kale going nuts.

Tomatoes are back this year for another run. They have done VERY well under lights this time around. I didn't even use the fan for airflow, but they aren't leggy. Also growing are some peppers and eggplant. Not growing are some strawberries.

Tomatoes about 45 days old +/- a week

I had enough starts that I risked putting a few out early. Four on the left are Rutgers, back right two are Brandywine, front right two are Cherokee Purple. Of course, I put them out and the weather turned briefly cold, allegedly down into the 30s. But I guess their cozy nook kept them a little protected, they seem fine.

Tomatoes in the flower nooks.

Also have some Black Cherry tomatoes growing and a planter full of basil. My next task is to get some zucchini going, and perhaps get some space cleared out in the front planter for more tomatoes and zucchini.

Calling It Quits

After many years at the community garden (7?) I'm calling it quits. I was off to a poor start - my seedlings sprouted at home didn't really take off, even though I had them going fairly early. Then unexpected personal issues with family had me travelling down to Florida to visit mom frequently and left the garden ill-tended. I have had bad years before, but even in bad years I would have more tomatoes than I could eat. But this year was looking to be almost nothing. The weeds were out of control, the plants never really flourished.

So rather than struggle to tame what was already pretty much a lost cause, I gave up. There are plenty of gardeners on the waiting list for our community garden, it's not right to do a half-assed job. So I withdrew from the garden, sadly too late in the season, so no one could take my spot this year. And I also quit the garden overseers committee. So it's done.

But wait, my forays into the wonderful world of homegrown tomatoes are decidedly NOT over. While my back yard is poorly suited to tomatoes, my front yard gets a lot of sun. So I'm going to put in some raised beds in the front yard. Since I see the beds every day, my thinking goes, I'll be better about tending them regularly, keeping the weeds down, and watering. It'll also be a much smaller area to tend. We'll see how it goes, and next year will probably see more active posts as I set up things at home.

Mediocre Start

Went to the garden this morning to check and see if the tomatoes needed watering. They didn't, but they are not thriving. I definitely expected them to be happier with the sunlight they're getting. I do think they will eventually perk up, though I may even lose a few. Weird. I will drop by tonight and hit them with a dose of fertilizer. Absolute worst case I have to buy some plants at the local greenhouse. Hope not.

Seed Starting

Well, it's about that time. Maybe a smidge late to get my seeds started indoors. But no matter, I'll do it anyway! So I carefully lay out 200ish seeds in plastic take home containers on a nice wet paper towel to sprout. I want to be scientific about it, so I lay out ten of each seed, I want to see what percentage, if any, of my older seeds will sprout. I carefully lay them out in little lines on the paper towel. I rip one corner of the towel so I know which line is which seed. I write up legends for each tray of seeds carefully detailing which breeds and which years the seeds are from. I set them in a nice spot to germinate. Day two of the process, I knock over a broom and all three trays topple to the ground, seeds going every which way. *sigh* The peppers, fortunately, seem to have been less scattered, so maybe still have some idea which is which. But the tomatoes may be mostly hopeless. Plus side, they're all good. Minus side, if I end up with 10 cherry tomatoes and no San Marzanos, I will be one unhappy farmer.

Actually, taking a look at the trays, one is all San Marzanos, and that tray was largely unaffected by the incident. The tray of peppers is hopelessly scrambled though. Solution - plant all of them? Only need 40 or 80 buckets! Which might actually be doable. Probably not all of them will germinate though. The big catastrophe is the other tomatoes - Red cherry large fruited, Yellow pear, Rutgers, Mortgage lifter, and Brandywine. Hopelessly jumbled.

First zucchini, first borer

Harvested the first zucchini today. Weighed in at 1 lb. There are three more ready to go in the next day or two as well. And our Bennings Green Tint turns out to be a pattypan type. Hmmm, did we know that when we ordered the seed? Looks nice, anyway.

Also saw the first confirmed squash borer fly. Tried to kill it but missed. I suppose it's only a matter of time before these zucchini are done in. Damned borers. Although have taken a step towards beating them - we have a second generation of zucchini started up, they're a few inches tall right now. Also purchased some zucchino rampicante seeds. They have a tough solid stem that the borers can't get into. I guess we'll put that to the test. Apparently if you leave the squash on the vine too long, the skin gets too tough and they end up like a winter squash, so will have to give that a try.

The tomatoes are looking good. No squirrel intervention yet. I'll probably do nothing to protect the tomatoes until after the squirrels do their damage. Here are some of the tigerellas, they look pretty sweet.

Tigerella

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.