Wednesday, June 29, 2011

late june garden update--it's summer!

seems like it’s been a long time since i’ve posted about what’s going on in the munchie patch. all i’ve had time for lately is throwing up a few photos--even now i shouldn’t be on here, i should be sleeping because i have to get up in six hours. but there’s so much happening, and i desperately want to talk about it! my snowy eggplant has three fruits already, the largest of which is pictured above. turkish orange eggplant has two tiny fruits, but the other two eggplant varieties are just barely starting to bloom.

i picked two more ripe tomatoes yesterday.

fifteen plants have now set fruit.

this tomato has fuzzy, angora-style leaves and grows stripy orange/red fruit. i love to pet it. it was so adorable as a seedling.

i’m nerding out over these fuzzy-leaf tomatoes...although as far as i know there's no advantage to them aside from the obvious cuddliness. i found a variety called “fuzzy wuzzy” that has fuzzy leaves and fuzzy-skinned, red striped fruit. the only seed source i could find was this guy in the netherlands, so i very carefully composed and translated an email to him in dutch, and he wrote me back in english. the seeds arrived this week--i also got sarga cseresznye peppers, whippersnapper and lime green salad tomatoes. my collection of tomato seeds now numbers 70 varieties, and total seed collection is over 270. i should cut myself off but i won’t.

black hungarian pepper, close to maturity (i think?)

marbles pepper. almost all the peppers are doing so great, with the exception of bell peppers that stubbornly refuse to set fruit and a choricero pepper plant that’s just puny. i started it too late and transplanted it too early.

some favas are almost ready to pick. i pinched out the tops so they won’t get any taller. they have such interesting square-shaped stalks.

i’m getting a lot of sugar snap peas right now...almost none of them stick around long enough to be photographed. i learned i’ve been picking them too young for the last couple years--now i let them plump up much more and they taste so much sweeter.

first garlic--i pulled these because they were getting crowded out by other plants. i used them as “wet garlic” (a.k.a. “green garlic”--garlic that hasn’t been dried) and made delicious garlic bread.

first purple radish, and possibly the last. i think it’s gotten too hot for them. it was such a cool spring, but when it turned to summer (literally, from the very first day of summer) a switch was flipped somewhere and it suddenly became really hot. it was 91 today, 95 a few days ago.

this might be the first time i’ve remembered to harvest oregano before it blooms. i harvested and dried a basket full--cut back a lot because it was strangling its sage neighbor.

the raspberries are fruiting but not as much as i hoped. i think i let too many canes grow, they might be overcrowded.

nasties bloomed this week. they’re not as vigorous as the ones i grew last year, unfortunately.

around five borage plants started blooming this week too.

pumpkin is blooming but i only see males right now,

i’m just a few days away from harvestable zucchini,

roses are in full bloom,

some lilies are popping open in the front yard,

sage and thyme are both blooming,


venous orange is still blooming but the other two citrus plants are only growing foliage, no buds.

i made a goal to not buy any salad greens for the whole month of june. tall order--i eat salads almost every day. the garden supplied me with enough to feed myself and give bags away to friends and family.





5 comments:

Bumble Lush Garden said...

Your garden looks amazing! I love that you try so many interesting tomato varieties(fuzzy wuzzy!). Have you considered publishing a list of all your seed varieties? I'm so curious to see everything you have.

Garlic question--I'm trying it for the first time this year. I've been told that if you leave a clove or two in the ground instead of picking all of them, they'll grow even bigger the next season. Have you tried that?

Victoria Williams said...

Very nice pics Emily! Your garden is looking fantastic. I had to laugh about your seed count. You should see my box of seeds, but they're all flowers.

Garden Girl said...

Your garden is so full of color- I love it! I'm jealous of your tomatoes, mine are all still green, but soon we'll all be swimming in them I'm sure.

Question: how do you get the black background to some of your photos- it makes for a very dynamic effect.

Jess said...

I can definitely sympathize with you...I'm also supposed to be waking up in 6 hours, and here I am reading through blogs and posting instead.

I love seeing your garden photos. My garden's behind yours - I just got my first two tomato blooms this week - but I can live a little vicariously through your pictures.

And I agree with Bumble Lush - you should post a list of all of your seeds. I'm curious too!

Emily said...

bumble lush--this is my first time growing garlic and i don't know a lot about it, but my understanding is that if you leave a whole head of garlic in the ground, the next year each of the individual cloves will sprout and you'll end up with a thick clump of garlic that isn't good for much.

i was thinking of posting a list of all the varieties i'm growing this season--around 150 different things--i should do that, thanks for reminding me.

victoria--we should start a seed addict support group. (slash seed-sharing network.)

garden girl--the black background can be done different ways, typically in post-processing. usually the original photo already has a darker background, then i tweak it in photoshop by adjusting the levels and/or burning. in PS: drag the "input levels" value on the far left closer to the center/right (unless doing so messes up the part of the image you're trying to isolate, in which case skip this step), then use the burn tool set to "shadows" at about 25% exposure to clear up any leftover bits. it might also be necessary to clone out some brighter areas.

jess--i love living vicariously through peoples' blog pictures. i'm a shameless garden porn addict.