Welcome Rain

   It has been a hot, dry summer.  In recent weeks, we have resorted to watering the garden from the hose, having used up all the rainwater that was stored.  Thankfully, we are on our third straight day of light rain this week.  It was very much needed, and the rain barrels are now full again.

   We have been enjoying the first few Yellow Prolific squash, snow peas (Green Beauty) and several batches of green beans (Provider and Roma II) from the garden.  Cucumbers are starting to develop and we have more mint than we know what to do with.  I hand pollinated the first Galeux D'Eysines squash on July 22nd.  

 

Yellow Prolific summer squash

Yellow Prolific summer squash

   Trying to keep the tomatoes adequately watered through the last two very dry months has resulted in some blossom end rot, particularly on the Rose de Berne, Moonglow, and Uluru Ochre tomatoes.  Thus far, Fisher's Earliest Paste, Hungarian Heart,  Favorie de Bretagne, Sylvan Gaume, Reinhard's Chocolate Heart, Franchi Red Pear, Principe Borghese, and Petrusha Ogorodnik have seemed resistant to BER.  Almost all the tomato plants have leaf curl to some degree.

   The pictures below were taken between July 22 and 27th.  Click to enlarge.

   Two dahlias have finally bloomed.  The first is off-white with fine, pale purple striping on the petals...

 

...And the second is a large, soft, white and baby-pink bloom.  Beautiful!

   A few cosmos (Rubenza and Sensation Mix) and little volunteer sunflowers have started to bloom.

 

   The strawflowers have begun to bloom, too.  Most are either bright pink, like those pictured below, or a pearly white/soft pink.  They close into tight marbles in cool, overcast weather and at night.

   The bachelor button (Blue Boy), leek, bean (Roma II), single-pea-plant, and single-cabbage bed.  An unintended mish-mash of things!

Herbs, greens, and a begonia.

Dragon's Egg cucumber plants.

The first cucumber of the season!

   Delicata Bush squash.  The plants have pretty silver-green leaves.  I'm not sure why one plant is so much larger than the other.  Ironically, it is the smaller of the two that has most of the set squash.  The larger plant keeps producing mostly male flowers.

   

   It is hard to get a picture of this bed that looks attractive!  Cosmos in the back and Fernleaf dill (a compact variety) in the front. 

 

   The garlic bed.  Several umbels are filling with developing bulbils.  Those are sitting near the top of straightened scapes that are now almost as tall as I am.

Curly Blue kale and cinnamon basil

Franchi Red Pear tomatoes.

Fred's Tie-Dye (dwarf) tomatoes.

   Fisher's Earliest Paste tomatoes.  These look similar to Petrusha Ogorodnik (not pictured), but are earlier and, at this point in time, seem to be more productive.

 

 

   Tomatoes (Hungarian Heart, Reinhard's Chocolate Heart, Sylvan Guame), assorted beans, and Dragon's Egg cucumber.

The crabapple tree is loaded this year.

 

The apples behind the house are coming along well, too.

 

   I picked 5 zucchini and made this season's first batch of relish (Zesty Zucchini relish from the Bernardin canning book) on July 25th. One of the seven pint jars didn't seal, so I am enjoying some of this relish early.