July Garden Update

With the first of July here, summer is in full swing.  It’s hot and humid out there and despite the seemingly never-ending evening rain and thunder showers, it is still slightly uncomfortable.  However, on the bright side I have not had to water nearly as much as I have in the past.  The heat and the rain have been very beneficial to the garden.  I don’t remember us being this far along with many of the vegetables, especially the tomatoes!

The three tomato plants we have out front have gotten so tall, we had to pick up some 6’-0” plastic stakes to help them support themselves.  We actually had one of the plants bend over on one stalk during a recent bought of windy weather.  In the past we have never had them go to far over their tomato cages.  They are fruiting really well.  I believe we have a Grape tomato, a Beef-steak tomato, and an Early Girl tomato plant, all of which are tall and have set fruit.

Above are carrots are coming along well on the left of the photo along with some lettuce on the right.  We actually lost a couple lettuce plants to some type of creature, what it is we are not sure but a couple of the plants were dug up, and nothing else was touched.  It seems like the strawberries and this lettuce bed were the only casualties from wildlife so far!

Another lettuce bed, I am not sure if it is the seeds being several years old or if this bed has an issue.  We have tried in the past to grow tomatoes and zucchini in this bed to no avail.  This year I figured we would try some lettuce and things are growing but not like we have seen in the past in our other beds.  Look like I will throw some beans in this bed after the lettuce.

Bush Beans!  I took our first harvest of beans, about a handful, the other ay to eat.  This is the earliest I have had beans and it seems that planting the bush beans in addition to the pole beans really seems to help prolong the harvest by having the bush beans early and the pole beans late!

Our first harvest of beans was from four Contender Bush Bean Plants.

The best garlic bed.  I have removed the scapes previously, a topic for another post, and am waiting patiently for the garlic to be ready for harvesting.  I believe late July or early August is when the garlic will be ready, but I will need to confirm.

The garlic scapes were very enjoyable in an Asian Stir Fry.  I cut over 50 off our hard neck garlic!

Red Potatoes – These potatoes are going bananas, so much so I had to add another tier to the 6’-0” long by 12” wide box!  Here’s hoping we will get a decent yield, from these tractor supply potatoes.

The blueberries are still not ripe, but they are starting to turn a little bluer each time I looks at them.  If we could get some sun, instead of all the rainy overcast days, I bet they would ripen.  Shouldn’t be long.

The bean trellis.  Two weeks ago  I hung some twine from the bean trellis and started training all the plants to climb and we have lift off.  No beans, and as you can see I have a lot of clover to remove!

Some of last years raspberry canes are fruiting.  The first fruits don’t quite look like store bought, but this is a wild raspberry plant we found in another part of our yard and transplanted last year.

From the photo above you can see how tall next years canes are in the center right of the photo.  These new canes are almost as tall as the t-posts.  Hopefully this bush will continue to fill out the niche we have started to cultivate for it and provided us with a third source of fruit at our house.

Although hard to see, the asparagus crowns we planted are doing well.  I think 50-60% of the crowns we planted have sprouted a single lone stalk of asparagus that has ferned out.  It’s interesting because some are tall and spindly and others are short and bushy.  We will have to see what happens next year!  The majority of green in this photo is our onions.  Surprising they are doing quite well.  We have had a hard time growing onions from sets, but we may appear to be getting one or two onions this year.  We have had one hiccup where two of the plants have flowered.  From what I have read once and onion flowers it stops producing a bulb.  I will need to pull one to confirm!

Last but not least the peppers, we have several varieties and most of them have started at least a couple peppers.  It looks like we still have a ways to go before harvesting, but it’s always a great thing to see your plants fruiting!