A Tour of my Garden

After a brief blog hiatus, I am back and ready again to share my escapades. As usual, most of them are food-related.

Julie's kitchen herbs: creeping thyme, sage, lemon grass, and chamomile, to name a few.

Let me start by saying the garden is looking amazing these days. The peas are mostly done, but still pop out a pod here or there, which I usually just eat right off the vine. I made a few mistakes with the peas -- the biggest being I didn't plant enough! Also, I've learned that peas, being one of the first plants to send out sweet, succulent shoots during a time when relatively little else is growing, are irresistible to rabbits. After trying every other method I could think of (predator urine, some organic repellent called "Bunny Barrier" that I'm pretty sure was composed of the ground-up carcasses of other rabbits, CD's on strings, pinwheels, and chili pepper spray), I've resigned myself to the fact that a physical barrier is the only surefire way of keeping bunnies out. Julie thinks chicken wire is ugly -- and I agree -- but my small yield was probably due to the fact that the bunnies all the leaves as soon as they emerged from the ground, and it took the poor plants at least two weeks to recover and grow new ones.

Julie's black violas - small but striking.

Anyway, the peas are done, the kale is getting woody, the spinach is long since past and the lettuces are bolting, but that's okay, because the leviathan squash plant that was once an innocent little seedling in my windowsill has completely taken over that part of the garden.

"Oak Leaf" lettuce, getting ready to bolt. The giant leaves in the background belong to the encroaching yellow squash.

Cucumbers are climbing, and thorny little junior pickles are happily multiplying.

Fair Physalis, or "Peruvian Golden Berry" Groundcherry, loved by me and every Japanese beetle in the garden.

My groundcherry, the mystery fruit that nobody can tell me much about, is putting out delicate, lantern-like husks every day. Its leaves are downy-soft and it has morning glory-esque black-eyed flowers; it would be a wonderful ornamental if the Japanese beetles hadn't completely disfigured it! Also, the plant receiving more light seems to be doing better than those subjected to some shade - a note for future groundcherry gardening.

Calendula (aka: "Pot Marigold") on the left of the path, and regular marigolds on the right. Calendula is a great companion plant for just about anything.

Calendula is a workhorse of a flower and I pick handfuls of blossoms every other day, which are currently drying in my kitchen (calendula is good for making soaps and ointments). I started these indoors from seed, and they took off magnificently in the border as soon as I planted them.

Basils - "Purple Ruffles" on the left and Holy Basil on the right. Its flower spikes attract pollinators.

Basil is another plant I can count on to harvest every day. We have about seven varieties, but I really only end up using the purple ("Opal" and "Purple Ruffles") or basic Italian ("Italian Large-Leaf") varieties on a regular basis.

"Peacevine" cherry tomatoes - so-called because their high antioxidant content is supposed to foster a feeling of inner peace!

The real show-stoppers right now are the tomatoes. They are beastly. My two cherry tomatoes ("Peacevine" is the name of the cultivar) are becoming downright problematic. They refuse to stay in their cages, sending out new runners faster than I can prune! Their taste is phenomenal - the best cherry tomatoes I've ever eaten. I'll for sure be growing them again next year, but I won't be putting them in a position where they can shade other plants, like my poor, stunted peppers. My "Calwonder" organic bell pepper has yielded exactly one pepper, "King of the North," zero, and my random purple pepper doesn't even have a flower. The jalapenos are doing well -- I'm sure the squirrel that tried to steal one now thinks twice about messing with this potent little plant!

"Early Jalapeno," flanked by "Siam Queen" and "Opal" basil. The basil is a good companion plant for peppers and tomatoes, and looks pretty in the border.

"Purple Russian" is the ugly stepsister of the group, with her curled leaves and stringy stems, and yet she is flowering and setting fruit just as reliably as the much prettier "Brandywine" plants that I lovingly started from seed.

Brandywine, thought to be one of the best-tasting tomatoes, is also the prettiest!

They have "potato-leaf" foliage, and our neighbor admitted she didn't know what they were until they started flowering!

"Roma" tomatoes -- an old stand-by with loads of pear-shaped little fruits.

"Roma," the only hybrid I'm growing, is producing almost as prolifically as my Peacevines, which surprises me a bit since I started the Roma seeds as a bit of an afterthought, and they're about two weeks younger than the other tomatoes I started from seed. I've been feeding every other week (or when I remember) with "Mater Magic," and watering only when the plants start to look stressed. I have quickly become convinced that Mater Magic is indeed magic, especially when combined with all this heat, humidity, and rain that we've been getting this summer!

Above is a typical day's harvest for early July. We're just starting to get summer squash and there's more basil than we know what to do with. As we transition into the hottest summer days, we say farewell to salad season and eagerly anticipate pestos and marinaras to come!