I think the garden looks the best right about now. It's lush and full and lovely, but won't stay this way for long. It will be all too soon when it starts to look raggedy and blowsy (if that is a word). All in all though, it's a natural progression as I harvest all the goodness the garden provides for us by giving it's all.
Even though we're once again very short on rain and considered in another drought period, things are looking good.
I finally have one single blossom from my two patches of cosmos flowers. I've been questioning why these favorites of mine have not given me as many bouquets in the past few years as I'd like. Did a little research and found cosmos don't like a very fertile soil. I guess this falls under the "can't win" category in that the garden soil has apparently gotten just "too good" for them! I still have hope, though, that I'll get more flowers if I'm just a little patient. Hope so, anyway.
This trellis of sugar snap peas (or edible podded peas as they're sometimes labeled) is so lush and heavy that the whole shootin' match started to go south. We propped it back up to a (almost) vertical position so now it's started to go west on me. Next year I'll definitely thin the seed sprouts out so there aren't so many vines to grow on the eight foot trellis.
I placed pots of herbs in the bed under the hoop trellis where the Scarlet Runner Beans have done such a great job of completely covering the whole hoop. So much so that for much of the day, the herbs were in too much shade. The parsley is the one exception that can tolerate less sunshine. So yesterday I repotted three of the herbs into bigger pots and then set them all in the bed where I harvested the beets a week or so ago. The herbs should be happier in this new-to-them full sunshine spot.
I grow colored gourds to use in my fall decorating and the seeds I've been using produce not a lot of variety to my mind. They've been mostly those green and yellow goose-shaped gourds and not much else. So I planted a different variety this year which I now realize would have been happier on the ground rather thinking they would climb on a trellis as did the old variety. I'm very curious to see the new gourds produced because the leaves on the ones this year are huge, and I'm having to tie the vines up to the trellis. (Not my favorite task.) Unfortunately, the vines are covering the lovely blue salvia plants I planted along the side of their raised bed.
Surprise, surprise! I actually have enough dill growing that I'll have ample for making my dill pickles this year. Maybe my
9 comments:
Everything is looking great! Prime Time on the garden. I didn't get a SINGLE dill plant.
Mama Pea, your garden looks fantastic! Every picture is a treat to the eyes. I'm glad it's doing so well.
Oh I just love it all! It was a very good year for peas for me, too, although I grow the traditional ones. I’ve never grown cosmos so I have zero advice. Sometimes I just grow dill to take a pinch every now and again just to smell it! - Jenn
Looking nicely lush!
Your garden looks lovely! I can’t believe how big it is every time I see the pictures. You must spend hours out there.
Our tomatoes are now coming in but not in batches big enough to can so they are going in the freezer. I already bought seconds from the farmers market. I canned two batches of Ball’s zesty salsa and quarts of crushed tomatoes. Do you freeze any of yours? If so, what recipe do you eventually use for them?
Looking so very good! I just love that Scarlet Runner hoop trellis. Is that a sunflower in the background of picture one? Please, what are the whitish mounds to the left of the bean trellis?
Your beds are just beautiful.
SmartAlex - For a long time, I didn't think I was going to get germination on mine either! What do we have going? A dill revolt?? P.S. Have been trying to comment on your posts but keep getting a message that there is an "error" when I try to publish it. :o\
Leigh - What a nice thing to say. I never thought it would get close to this point with all the trials and tribulations this year!
Jenn - I, too, grow regular shell peas as our main winter pea crop. Mine are j-u-s-t about filled out enough to start picking. You are with dill the way I am with mint! I have to rub my fingers in it and smell nearly every time I go by!
gz - Lush is a real reward when one puts in so much effort on growing things!
Katie C. - I love (just about) every hour I spend in the garden! I've totally given up growing tomatoes in our location without some kind of a hoop house, greenhouse, or whatever . . . which we don't have. I can get them to the large, green stage but never have enough of a growing season for them to ripen on the vine. Those brought in green and ripened just aren't worth it in flavor to my mind. :o(
Rosalea - You win the prize! I just knew someone would ask about that "sunflower." It's a metal garden ornament given by our good neighbors as kind of a joke because they know I love sunflowers! I do have two 16' rows of sunflowers planted that are just now forming heads. The whitish mound I think you see is four little yellow petunias I planted in a 4' row. They have taken off like gangbusters and formed a beautiful mound. Thanks for the kind words!
Your raised beds are wonderful and intriguing to me. I picked my first musk melon yesterday. The vines had been looking green and healthy, then all of a sudden, they looked 'blowsy'. A search revealed ripeness! And so it goes. Bare fields, lush growing green, then tops yellowing asking for the harvest to come. Next year, more dill! Cheers from Oakdale Farm.
Tim - As you may imagine, growing muskmelons or watermelons without protection of some kind is close to impossible up here near the Arctic Circle! But with my last seed order I received a "sample" of a variety of muskmelon seeds so I planted a hill of them this spring. Only two seeds germinated, then one quickly died leaving me with one growing sprout. It reached a height of about three inches . . . and stayed stubbornly right there. I finally gave up and pulled it out a couple of weeks ago. 'Twas fun to try though. :o) Happy harvest to you!
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