July 22nd Garden Pictures

Click to enlarge four nectar seekers riding a wild cow parsnip.↓

As the week progresses we will be closing in on 100° temperatures. The food gardens have been thriving with growth and if they make it through these hot spells and into August we may be in for a really good harvest this season. So far I have never had any issues with the weather in August and always breath a sigh of relief once we have reached that mile mark. The weeds are now under control and need only be pulled occasionally as we stroll through our little oasis in the trees.

The tomatoes, let me rephrase that... one of our tomatoes has finally ripened. As was the case in previous years the extremely hardy yet delicious Bloody Butcher tomato was the first to cross the finish line. They are an heirloom indeterminate plant whose fruit ripens quickly and are probably my favorite all around tomato for all the above mentioned reasons.


This section of the garden contains around 47 of the embarrassingly ridiculous number of tomato plants we are attempting to grow this year.


The Painted Mountain corn all adorned in tassels is doing well, while the Blue Jade is off to a rather slow start. Will this be the year Mike (that's me:) has planted corn that not only grows tall and green but also forms an edible grain? We shall see.


I've had to plant and replant the cabbage a bit this spring but it is looking good now. We are growing Ruby Ball, Derby Day, Savoy Perfection, Copenhagen, Danish Ballhead, and Late Flat Dutch this year. The picture below is where the majority are grown but like the tomatoes we have them scattered in various locations all over the gardens.

This beauty is from my own saved seed, and is a cross between a couple unknown cabbages. It was one of the two cabbages to survive winter storage in 2007 and was planted last spring and allowed to form seed, as I did not plan on saving seed from them my records regarding variety were nil.

Someday I may make my own website just so I can get the pictures to show properly. This once nice shot depicts a row of beets, celery, celeriac, and garlic.

Same crops, different angle.

Strawberries, Belgian endive, Purple Peacock broccoli, and a few sunflowers.

The row below is dedicated to seeds, the front part is comprised of various salad greens and further back there are carrots, beets, Umpqua broccoli, celery, Belgian endive and other plants becoming seedy. It was a real mental struggle to dedicate a 50' row in the main garden for seed purposes. I'm glad I did, but watching a entire row just sit there knowing it will only produce seed at the end of the year is definitely challenging. I think that pretty much every row in our gardens have a couple plants set aside for seed saving, that's how I normally do it. Don't be fooled by the onions in the pictures, they are not for seed they're bolting. ugh!! No big deal though, this row was planted with set onions and it's mostly the red ones that have chosen to bolt?

This section contains flax and onions grown from seed, not sets, for winter storage that thankfully are not bolting.

Litchi tomatoes, purple & green tomatillos, and ground cherries are doing well except I mixed up a few of the tags and we seem to have a lot fewer ground cherries and Cape gooseberries than I had originally planned on. Oops.

Squash, zucchini, and a few kohlrabi.

Cucumbers, Mexican sour gherkins, peppers, eggplants and the last of the afila peas drying on the vine...for seeds.

My assistant keeping an ever watchful eye on the red Belgium peppers and me.

We are still harvesting kale and broccoli for the freezer. The jar contains clover sun tea in the making.

And last but most importantly a parting shot of our seedy salad garden with raspberries and blackberries at the far end. Then there are the sunchokes, potatoes, herbs, beans, and a whole lot of other veggies that will have to wait for another post...Ay yi yi.