Monday, August 13, 2012

Some Late Summer Garden Pictures

Considering the crazy weather we've had this summer and the onslaught of insects, my garden has turned out better than I ever thought it would. We've recently had decent amounts of rain, too, which I'm sure has helped immeasurably.

Here's an aerial view of the raised beds taken from my perch in hubby's office. (Or hanging out of one of his windows actually. He kept asking me to please not fall out. Whadda guy!)

Some beds have been cleaned out already . . . hence the sparse look. The three beds that look like they have black covers on them are planted out with cool weather fall crops like broccoli, spinach, Swiss chard, kohlrabi, kale and lettuce and have shade cloth covers on them.

This is some lettuce I planted several weeks ago. The only reason it looks this good or could survive in the heat we've had is because of the shade cover. That stuff really works.

Do you see the bed of Jerusalem artichokes way down at the end of the third row of raised beds? They have to be nine feet tall. Still no sign of flowering out though.

A very sad looking potato patch. It got hit with blight pretty hard. Especially the two rows in the center.

This part of the field garden shows the strawberry patch in the foreground. Just yesterday we cut down all the strawberry plants so they'll have a chance to make strong, healthy, new growth before frost. Beyond that patch is my little pumpkin pie pumpkins. Then sunflowers past that. On the other side of the sunflowers (which you can't see) are jack o' lantern pumpkins.

Here we've got corn in the right corner with Red Kuri squash in front of that and then a line of cosmos. None of my flowers have done well this year. The foliage part of the cosmos grew weird, there were very few flowers and the flowers that bloomed were malformed. Very strange.

Ha! I was so eager for these nasturtiums. They were supposed to be a mix of ivory and maroon blooms. Do you see any maroon blooms? Me neither.

I think I've got a good crop of yellow storage onions coming along. The red onions look pretty good, too.

This is the same variety of cherry tomato I've planted for several years. But, golly-wumpus, this year they are gargantuan in size! About three or four times the size they usually are. What gives with that?

They are just now starting to ripen. We had our first one this weekend. It had absolutely no taste. Nope. None. Zip. Zilch. No taste. Ain't that a boot in the butt?

Okay, this is getting too long. I'll post more garden pictures tomorrow. Promise.

21 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the pictures! It looks better than mine...which is zero this year lol.

dr momi said...

Oh my....I will not show you my garden right now :-) You have inspired me!

Mama Pea said...

Stephanie - But I'll bet you're gonna wow us all next year!

Mama Pea said...

dr momi - I've inspired you?? Huhn. ;o]

Carolyn said...

Please come live with me for a gardening season. I'll pay you in all the eggs, milk and goat meat and chicken you can eat! My garden is pathetic. But I'm glad to see your garden is doing well (well, except for those weird tasteless 'maters). I hope my garden looks as lovely as yours one day.

Sparkless said...

Your gardens are always so picture perfect. I know it's because you work so hard keeping them that way.
Do you keep your own seed? If so I wonder if the tomatoes got cross pollinated with another variety? Too bad they don't have any flavor.
The husband just picked his first ripe tomato today and had it on a hamburger. He said it tasted good. LOL! How very descriptive of of him.

seostilbonleela said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Sue said...

You noted the strange cosmos this year--I noticed yesterday that several of mine are growing odd like that too. I wonder what could cause that........

I got my first ripe Yellow Pear toms yesterday--my regular tomatoes are fully loaded but not even THINKING about ripening. It's maddening -our first frost date is coming in 2 weeks. I need (NEED!!!) a BLT!!!

Mama Pea said...

CR - If your garden is "pathetic" it's through no fault of yours. No one could have a decent garden in the extreme drought conditions you've had for what? . . . two? three? . . . years. All you need is rain, m'dear. You know how to do the work.

Mama Pea said...

Sparkless - No, there's been no other tomato around here for years that these could have cross-pollinated with. My hope is that as the season goes on, they'll get some flavor. Improbable? We'll see.

Thinking of that burger with tomato that your husband ate makes me salivate!

Mama Pea said...

Sue - Do we have the Cosmos Curse? I rely on them in the summer for copious bouquets inside so I've really been missing them this year.

Living as far north as we do, it's soooo frustrating that no matter what we do (or how hot the summer!) it's darn near impossible to bring some veggies to maturity. My cherry toms have been big and bright yellow for so long. I sure would have though the heat this year would have given us all tomatoes out our ears!

Erin said...

Sorry about the blight, I know you count on that potato harvest. Everything else looks amazing and that lettuce - wow! My beds are still full of dying tomatoes and weeds and it's so wet and hot I still can't get near it , I sure hope the weather turns soon so I can get out there and get some lettuces going.

Lisa said...

Love, LOVE your garden photos! The first one could be a picture postcard in my book. There's no way we could ever grow lettuce like yours in our summer heat/sun.... and that's always when I want to eat salads. Seems kinda' backwards. Thanks for taking the time for sharing your garden photos with us.

Spiderjohn said...

What do you use for your shade covers?

Susan said...

Heck, I planted an entire area of cosmos and none of them - not a one - germinated. This has been the season of the cursed germination, that's for sure. Your onions look fabulous! Mine are so-so and the tops withered and died in July! Cripes! I sure hope that next year is better for us gardeners. Of course, that's what I said last year - third year's the charm?

Anonymous said...

Beautiful and immaculate garden, MP! The very same thing happened to my Cosmos. I thought my problem was from too much manure. But maybe it is just part of the wacky growing season this year. And the copious rain watered down my tomato flavor, it seems. I'm not complaining tho! At least something survived (or outgrew) the horrible cutworm invasion!-"M"

Mama Pea said...

Erin - Are you growing mold on your counters? That heat and wet combined has got to be just awful! If you could send a whole bunch of your moisture inland and south, you'd make a lot of people happy.

Mama Pea said...

Lisa - Well, phsaw! YOU are the one who has the picturesque garden! We had a lot of trouble with our lettuces this summer, too, because of the extreme heat. That's why we're so enjoying this we have now.

Mama Pea said...

Spiderjohn - It's a product called shade cloth and if you Google it you'll find it available from several sources. I ordered mine from a garden supply catalog (can't remember which one as it's been several years ago) but I think even Target has it now. It's a very light and flexible plastic knitted netting type material and comes in different weaves from about 30% to 90% depending on how much light you want to keep out. Mine is 50%.

Mama Pea said...

Susan - I started my cosmos inside as I usually do and they all seemed normal. Until they went out into the big, bad world and started getting freaky on me. I'm beginning to realize that I've come out pretty good on my garden this year . . . even though so much didn't germinate and the taters got socked with the blight and even my cherry tomatoes won't turn red. And a lot just didn't grow for ever so long. But I'm still getting harvests to put by for winter so I'll not cry in my beer.

Mama Pea said...

"M" - Not really so immaculate when you get too close!!

Do you know I've been dreaming of those blankety-blank cutworms??! Oh, how I'm hoping for a severe winter to kill off all the insects (and ticks!) that are not supposed to survive so far north!