Early August Odds and Ends

   It has been a wet start to August.  The garden appreciates the rain, and I appreciate the break from schlepping watering cans.

   Some of the dry bush bean varieties are already starting to dry down on the plants.  Most of the Arikara pods are turning yellow/beige.  It is the earliest dry bean of the season, by far. A few of the Weiner Trieb pods have begun to turn yellow as well.  Early Warwick won't be far behind it.

  Two more zucchini and two Yellow Prolific squash were ready, so I made a second batch of Zesty Zucchini relish yesterday.

   We have been harvesting, blanching, and freezing small batches of peas over the past two weeks.  This year's pea patch hasn't provided a huge crop but there is enough to enjoy with a few meals throughout the winter.  Of the three varieties grown this summer, Green Arrow - as usual - came out the winner.  Lillian's Caseload was earlier, but its pods are smaller.  Laxton's Progress remained very short, the pods were small, and its peas became starchy quickly.

   When planting snap beans in May, I tried using up some of the older seed I had in my stash.  The germination rates were hit or miss, and I ended up having to replant several times.  'Provider' has proven to be a great bean.  The plants are sturdy and remain upright, keeping most of the beans off the ground.  Provider beans grow large and straight and are tender.  Cantare, a slender green bean, has been a disappointment so far.  The plants are short/stocky, but they quickly fall over, leaving the beans to grow on the ground.  That results in many of them growing in a curled or crooked shape and rotting/getting muddy when it rains.  Calima, which I've grown in the past, seems a much more reliable and easy-to-manage slim bean variety.  The Roma II beans are great - I wish I'd grown more this year.  The plants are large and they tip over under the weight of the beans, but the flavour and texture of Roma II's make it worth that hassle.

   With the ground already wet and more rain in the forecast, I decided to pull the small Red Russian bulbs (grown from rounds at the front of the garlic bed) and Brown Tempest bulbs on July 31st.  Central Siberian and Northern Quebec bulbs were pulled on August 1.  From the looks of things, I should have pulled the Northern Quebec earlier.  The outer wrappers don't cover all the cloves and some of the cloves look like they're pulling apart from the other cloves in the bulbs.  It will be fine to eat, it just might not store as long as it normally would.

   The female Galeux D'Eysine squash flowers have finally started to bloom in earnest, and I've hand-pollinated 4 in the last week.  This one (pollinated July 22) is the earliest and largest of the bunch.

 

Favorie de Bretagne tomatoes

Fisher's Earliest Paste tomatoes

Petrusha Ogorodnik tomatoes (paste)

 

 

The first China aster is about to open...

Strawflowers

Lots o' Bachelor Buttons...

The dahlias are beginning to bloom (Unwins Dahlia mix).  Love the pink one!

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.

 

Dinner Guest: Kale Salad Edition

   This beautiful deer strolled through the potato patch around 6:00PM on July 20th on her way to have some kale for supper.

 

She spotted a plastic tote of compost and manure tea on her way out of the garden...

 

...and for a moment, we wondered if she might partake in an after-dinner digestif.  She took one sniff and thought better of the idea.
 

 

 

 

Some peace and quiet in the shade.

 

 

  

   If you look closely at the first three photos, you'll see Little Lou watching the deer from the safety of her "hammock".  Once the deer left, she went right back to sleep.

 

 

 

 

 

Cat Naps and Bachelor Buttons

  July has been hot and dry so far, with several days reaching 30+ degrees.  There has been no rain to speak of, despite regular severe thunderstorm watches in our weather forecasts.  I am longing for a day or two of gentle, steady rain.  The plants would love the deep drink, and I would love a break from schlepping watering cans.

   Smoke from wildfires continues to be a presence.  Some days, the sky is blue and the air is clear and fresh. Other days, the sun looks neon pink-orange, the air is a hazy, apocalyptic orange-grey, the smell of smoke is inescapable, and the mountain on the other side of town (that we can usually see) is obscured from view.

   In the garden, I was able to finally hand-pollinate a zucchini flower yesterday (first of the season) after a week of male-only flowers appearing.

   A little sunflower in the south garden has bloomed, the first of the season.  Several other small sunflowers had their tops munched off by the visiting deer earlier this month.

   The peas in the East garden are now developing pods in earnest and the calendula planted around garden property is blooming nicely.

   Of the two surviving cabbage, one looks robust and one looks like it might give up the ghost at any moment.

   The kale is thriving (unlike last year), the eggplants are not (glad I only planted two).

   I sprinkled some granular tomato fertilizer around the tomatoes, dahlias, and eggplants on July 5th and will water the whole garden with diluted EM-1's next week.

   The snow peas ("Green Beauty") are well under way.  We started snacking on them out in the garden this week, and I had my first brunch of steamed ones yesterday.  So good!

 

 

   As a thank-you for sharing some herb transplants last month, a fellow gardener gave me some petunia transplants.  They're adding a bright splash of colour to the sea of green.

 

 

   The Bachelor Buttons ("Blue Boy") are blooming in earnest now.  The picture doesn't do them justice; the colour is so pretty and they are growing so densely.  A volunteer snow pea came up in the middle of the Bachelor Buttons.   I had to stake it yesterday, as it was latching onto the flowers to climb and ended up pulling some of them over. 

 

 

   Calendula ("Pacific Beauty Mix") and dry bush beans ("Arikara", I believe).

 

 

Calendula ("Pacific Beauty Mix") in the north garden.

Lettuce ("Rouge D'Hiver")

 

Hot day, droopy squash ("Galeux D'Eysines")

 

Busy bee on a tomato flower.

 

Tomato Progress

Favorie de Bretagne.  I can't get over how many flowers these plants have!

 

 

   Franchi Red Pear.  One of these years, I am going to grow Frenchi Red Pear and Auria tomatoes side-by-side and see if anyone catches on.

Fisher's Earliest Paste

Hungarian Heart

Reinhard's Chocolate Heart

Sylvan Guame

Uluru Ochre

 

 

   R. spotted this volunteer tomato plant growing in the potato patch.  It is tiny, but producing flowers!  I can tell by the leaves it is Black Sea Man.  I wonder if we'll actually get a tomato or two from this little guy.

The begonia seems to like its shady spot on the herb bathtub.

 

   The kitties like to relax outside while we're working in the garden.  Here is Bea, snoozing in the shade of the lilac bush...

 

...and little Lou, in her "portable cat-hammock".