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!

goth sunflower

they’re not the only sunflowers blooming in my garden right now, but these “chianti” variety sunflowers are so striking they take all the attention. the petal color changes depending on the light—sometimes almost purplish, sometimes deep red, sometimes lighter reddish-orange. the veins and stems are dark purple. the flowers are on the small side but with many multiple buds. thank you so much to angela for sharing the seeds. i know these flowers are special to her, and now they’re special to me too.

setting sunflowers

big day in the garden

i’m guilty of garden neglect. i let things get crazy. this morning/afternoon i spent about four hours pruning tomato plants--brutally, i even cut off some branches that had baby tomatoes on them, which made me die a little inside--then spent another couple hours on general maintenance. and i was rewarded with the best harvest yet:

three paul robeson tomatoes, four chocolate cherry tomatoes, two small ears of corn, some beans, two pounds of purple potatoes and a glut of miscellaneous little tomatoes.

here are the potatoes, they didn’t fit in the basket. i set them in the grass because i think they look like easter eggs. all this from one super-tiny seed potato and some nice idaho potato-growing soil...i’m growing more next year for sure.

for dinner i sliced up half the potatoes, mixed in the beans, added olive oil and seasonings then roasted them. sogoodohmygod.

i also ate a raw ear of sweet corn. yumm. all the rest of the ears look like they’re about half the size of that first ear, i don’t know why. they taste the same.

i got to try two new tomato varieties today: chocolate cherry and paul robeson. i expected the chocolate cherry to be a smoky, dark sort of flavor, but not at all--they taste like pineapple! super juicy, light, sweet and tropical. seriously more pineapple-flavored than tomato-flavored. i think it must be a weird reaction to the growing conditions because they are not supposed to taste like this. delicious, though.

paul robeson (pictured above) also tastes a little strange, and i’ll risk whatever tomato-tasting credibility i may have to say they taste like canned asparagus. this might require a suspension of disbelief on the part of the reader...first pineapples and now asparagus. maybe my palate’s just wacky. anyway, robeson is delicious too--the asparagus flavor is not very strong, it mostly tastes like awesome tomato. meaty as hell, really cool texture, almost no seeds, look at this thing:

now i’ve sampled white currant, yellow pear, mystery (paste grape), ladybug, sugary, black from tula, chocolate cherry and paul robeson, in that order. my favorite is still white currant, with the two from today tied for second.

i made an exciting discovery while pruning: big rainbow tomatoes! two of them. this plant was the last hold-out for weeks, refusing to set fruit. i’d given up on it.

the dwarf sunflower patch is finally opening some blooms. these took so much longer than i thought they would.

yesterday i pulled up my tiny patch of wheat. it’s for decoration, i’m not going to attempt anything foodish with it.

i leave you with mr. tomato head:

full swing?

i’ve been thinking a lot this summer about the idiom “in full swing” and how it applies to a garden. early on i kept thinking, “god, i can’t wait until everything’s in full swing!” and then i thought, “how will i know when it is in full swing? what does that term even mean?” the dictionary says “at the highest level of activity or operation,” but i’m not sure exactly how to qualify that in a garden. still it remained a reeeally appealing thought...i tried to have faith that i’d know it when i saw it.

now i’m wondering if “full swing” is some unachievable state i conceptualized just to torment myself. the thing is, i *think* my garden is in full swing now. i’m seeing a good variety of foods coming in every day, including (most importantly) tomatoes. but if this is full swing it’s a little anti-climactic, only because every day things are ripening, every day is a climax, and it’s been like that for a while now.

following that line of thought, maybe it’s like someone who says, “yeah, i think i’ve had an orgasm.” it’s not the kind of thing you “think.” you bloody well know it when it happens. maybe the uncertainty means it’s definitely not in full swing.

there’s still much to look forward to, i know. but i can’t stop thinking about october seventh--the first average frost date for my zip code. i have a feeling the first frost will be later this year, just because cold weather stuck around so long, it’s only fair that the warm weather lingers late too. october seventh, though, only a month and a half away. will i see full swing before then, or will we still be clicking up to the peak when ice locks up the wheels and the rollercoaster careens off the track?

any thoughts? what do you think “in full swing” looks like in a garden?

here’s a photo of the main bed from august 7...

and one with andy to show scale.

and one more with andy doing his impression of a pissed-off possum.

“tomato alley” from 8/7. i have to literally get down on my hands and knees to water the containers all the way at the back. harvesting will not be easy.

on monday i picked the first full-sized tomato and the first ear of sweet corn, along with two golden zucchini, some collard greens, some beans, and a bunch of currant, cherry and grape tomatoes. the squash, greens and beans became dinner.

i’m shocked that i successfully grew an ear of corn! more to come, hopefully...this first ear can’t be beat though. it was so delicious. immediately after picking i boiled it for a few minutes then ate it without any additives. it was sooo sweet, mmm.

and so nice to photograph.

i plan to go all martha stewart-y and use the stalks in crafty autumn decorations.

first two rattlesnake pole peas matured yesterday.

i have three different locations for these. at one location, four of the vines are growing through a pair of tomato plants.

it works great, much better than my corn pea support attempt (the corn stalks didn’t grow fast enough for the vines)--the only problem with this is finding the peas. they hide very well in this huge mass of foliage.

the coco rose de prague pole beans are budding already, even though the plants are less than a foot tall. i’m growing these purely for their name, by the way. not only is it reminiscent of a band i like (cocorosie), it also has a really hot assonance. (i wouldn't kick the consonance out of bed, either.) say it aloud. really, try it, with a french accent. purse your lips and get that sweet guttural r going in the back of your throat. i don’t think the beans could be any more delicious than the name.

i persuaded some dill to grow! in a container, though. the “easy to grow herb” curse seems to apply only to dill i start in the ground.

all the ground-planted rhubarb swiss chard seedlings were devoured by slugs, but the container ones are doing ok. such pretty leaves.

i picked the last of the gonzo beans. these were cool to grow, i like the look of the plants and the peas (are they peas or beans? chickpeas, garbanzo beans...) are delicious, but they’re low-yield so i probably won’t grow them again.

here’s something you don’t see very often in this climate in mid-august: lettuce! i’m trying to get this oak-leaf lettuce to bolt, because the seed came in a mix and i’d like to grow a lot of this particular variety alone next spring.

look how freakishly small some of these white currant tomatoes are. average is about half an inch in diameter, but a few are unbelievably tiny, like these that can fit four on the surface of a quarter. i know people usually compete for the largest tomato, but can i win for smallest?

these collard greens don’t quit. i think i’m going to take them out because i need the space for late summer/fall plantings.

i haven’t taken enough pictures of green tomatoes...i keep waiting for them to color before i photograph them, but they’re beautiful green, too.

especially the long trusses of these cherry tomatoes:

the trusses seem to get longer as the season progresses. this one hasn’t filled out yet, but it’s the longest i’ve seen:

potentially over 30 tomatoes on one stalk. (the random dog in the foreground was once a birdhouse, but is now a funnel-web spider house.)

i hope everyone else in blogland is having a happy, full-swing-esque summer full of big harvests. thanks, all, for the comments, by the way. it sort of amazes me that anyone bothers to read or even skim through annoyingly long and possibly inane posts like this one, but it makes me happy that they do. anyway, i really appreciate when people take the time to stop by and say hello, and i’ve been meaning to say that for a while.