harvests, volunteers and mini vacations

 yesterday i spent about 5 hours weeding the garden and filled an entire garbage can with leafy detritus. while weeding i uncovered dozens of volunteer mystery tomatillo and tomato seedlings! i'm letting them all grow even though i have no clue what varieties they could be. i was disappointed that i never got tomatillos started this spring so this makes me happy.

 they even planted themselves in good places. i updated my 2012 growing list, adding in all the volunteers and subtracting some failures (major earwig problems over here--i lost tons of seedlings.)

 these sunflowers are another welcome group of volunteers. i never got around to planting any sunflower seeds this year, lameness, but these seem like they're going to be awesome. there's eight of them scattered around and they all have many many buds.

 first squash of the summer!

 and first ripe *red* tomatoes came in last week, including this doubleton.

 i'm still getting lots of golden sweet peas, but most of them don't make it in front of the camera.

 albino alpine strawberries are trickling in at about one wee mouthful per week.

 i planted my kales too close together but they're doing well anyway. in front you can see the bush beans coming up.

 asparagus berries? the asparagus patch is going gangbusters. once the seeds mature i'll plant them to try to help it expand.

 here's something i don't think i've ever posted about before. it's a weird little tomato relative called "naranjilla" ("little orange" in spanish; a.k.a. "lulo"). it's my first year growing this. the seeds take over a month to germinate, the plant likes heat but not direct sunlight, doesn't like wind, takes an extremely long season, and the thorns are absolutely EVIL. why even grow it?

 because look how cool!! and it's a fun challenge. i've never tasted naranjilla fruit before. i can't wait. they look a bit like fuzzy persimmons. here's a picture from jungle garden:

 i harvested a 4+ foot tall volunteer lamb's quarters yesterday. jason's been juicing the leaves for green smoothies lately. so we pulled up the whole plant and put it in a tub of water, then he drove off with it in the back of his truck--it looked like a christmas tree!

 cam and i went cherry picking at an organic cherry/plum/apple orchard in emmett saturday morning. between the two of us we picked about 10lbs of bing cherries, and at only $1/lb we probably should've done more. but it was a little weird for me, being so used to foraging. dozens of short little trees loaded with gobs of perfectly ripe fruit within easy reach--i told her i felt like a hunter shooting animals at the zoo. still fun though, and we had a lovely picnic under a cherry tree.

 i have one day of work left this week. i decided to take thursday and friday off to have a nice five-day vacation during which i hope to do as much nothing as possible. i might go up to mccall to watch the fireworks on the lake. other than that i intend to laze around in the garden, read, take pictures, and watch the entirety of netflix.

happy july!

yellow harvest

hahms gelbe tomatoes and golden sweet peas. these peas are amazing! of the 4-5 varieties i've grown in the last few years these come the closest to the impossibly sweet sugar snaps i remember from my childhood.

the apples and quince are plumping up and blushing with a little bit of pink. a lot of the apples aborted but i think that's ok? it seemed like there were too many for the tree to support. there are still a lot left.

peas & chickens

return of the munchie patch

 so far i've planted: asparagus, potatoes, raspberries, garlic, nasturtiums, pansies, rosemary, parsley, marigolds, purple kohlrabi, purple broccoli, dinosaur kale, red russian kale, swiss chard, chioggia beets, detroit dark red beets, purple plum radishes, sparkler radishes, strawberries, onions and peas. i've barely made a dent in the garden space.

 this weekend i tore up the front flower bed. it was a mess. i uncovered an overgrown old brick border, tore out lots of weeds, divided some very compacted tulip bulbs and planted a border of them alternating with freesia bulbs. the rest of the bed is going to be calendula, cumin and nasturtiums. the gladiolus bulbs along the driveway just came up, and next to them i'm going to plant a line of teddy bear dwarf sunflowers.

 i'm growing a centerpiece herb pot with basil, parsley and thyme. i got this idea from 36th street bistro, they have little pots of herbs on their outdoor tables for you to pick and add to your food.

 i'm really excited about these peas. they're golden sweet peas that i picked up at a seed swap earlier this year. the first i heard about them was in this fascinating blog post. i love how the flowers turn from pink to purple to blue, and i love the history behind them.

 this is a hahms gelbe topftomate plant, it only grows to about a foot tall and has little yellow cherry tomatoes. over two dozen green tomatoes on it now! i grew one of these on the windowsill over the winter too, it did pretty well.

 the poppies in the front yard are so close to popping!