Summer Gardening

Baby butternut squash

This morning, I spent three hours weeding my garden plot. I also pulled up all the peas, spread compost, replanted pole beans (Kentucky Wonder) in their place and made a bean trellis. I also planted rainbow carrots, nasturtium and bush beans (Tendergreen). The bush beans were planted close to the asparagus. I noticed that most of my potatoes did not grow (only a handful of plants came up), so I filled the gap with bush beans. There is still some space between the beans and the potatoes, which I likely will fill with salad greens. I moved the pepper plant because it was shaded by the cucumber foliage. I sprinkled Epsom salt around my tomatoes and gave everything a good thorough watering.

Cucumber flowers

The garlic has started to yellow. I will probably pull it in a week or two and need to think what I will plant in its space, part of it is occupied by the butternut squash vine, which is taking over much of the plot. The dahlias are coming up – I saw the first flower buds today.

Firsts and Lasts

Red currants, snap peas, pickling cucumbers and Swiss chard

Today’s harvest: first pickling cucumbers (they are big!), last peas, and Swiss chard. Also, the first real red currant harvest. I had planted a bush in our backyard in the fall two years ago. Last summer, the plant was tiny and we got only a handful of currants. This year, I harvested a good amount. Pictured are about two thirds, maybe.

Midsummer Porch

The herb/tomato/eggplant/potato/pepper/lettuce/chard corner of my back porch

The plants on my Southwest-facing back porch are doing well for the most part. We had plenty of rain lately and last week we had a couple of really hot days so those tiny chard and kale seedlings are finally catching up. I am very impressed with the potatoes and the lettuce.

Potatoes
Leaf lettuce
Baby kale planted after head lettuce harvest
Eggplant
Swiss Chard
Astilbe (on our Northeast-facing front porch)

Garden Dinner

Leeks and onions from the garden

Earlier this week, I made (up) a Greek-inspired quick dinner. I fried up leeks, onion, garlic and a bell pepper and added ground beef to it. I added tomato paste to make it more like a sauce and seasoned it with paprika, smoked paprika, salt, pepper, oregano. Topped it with feta and fresh parsley and served over rice. Quick, easy and delicious.

The (overwintered) leeks and onions were from my garden plot, the parsley from my back porch.

More Dahlias

Yesterday, when I cleaned out the basement, I found my shoe box with dahlia tubers from last fall that I had completely forgotten about. I had not watered them once during the past seven months. Surprisingly, two of the four plants were still alive and showed new, albeit anemic, growth. I planted them in the plot. Yay for more flowers in my garden!

Lettuce

The great lettuce harvest of June 2019

We have had a few warm and humid days lately and the head lettuce leaves started to grow more upright, a sign that it will bolt soon. I harvested the remaining three heads in the plot and one big head from the porch. I still have some leaf lettuce growing with the hot pepper on the porch. I planted a kale seedling in the now empty container on the porch.

I also harvested garlic scapes and snap peas. The snap peas made it onto a crudités platter this afternoon for my now 14 year old son’s birthday party.

UPDATE: For dinner I tonight, made bibimbap lettuce cups with leftovers (meat and sesame spinach). Yum!

Mid-September

I will take back what I said about cucumbers. I harvested two big ones yesterday, plus green beans and two eggplants. There are just a few more tomatoes on the vines now, sadly.

Still going strong: leeks and carrots. Also still some cucumbers, eggplants, hot peppers and green beans. And the arugula, chard, kale, fall greens and radishes I sowed a little while ago are looking good.

Here are some recipes I made recently that used home-grown garden produce: roasted green beans with harissa, baked eggplant with garlic and basil, roasted cod with potatoes and green beans, Greek salad, pesto potato salad with green beans, Pico de Gallo, Swiss chard frittata.

No More Cucumbers

Today’s harvest: Swiss Chard, Kentucky Wonder pole beans, tomato, eggplant, dahlias.

The cucumber vine has started to wither. There is a couple more cucumbers still but I am not sure if they will make it. Well, we had a good run for sure. Still growing: tomatoes (winding down), pole beans, eggplant, chard, kale, carrots, leeks, hot peppers, greens, radish, arugula. The last three were just sown a couple of weeks ago, so they are not ready for harvest just yet. I also still have my directly sowed butternut squash. It looks great and has plenty of flowers, but I believe it is too late in the season for it to bear fruit. Alas.

I ordered seed garlic this past weekend: softneck Transsylvania from Burpee. I decided to save a few of my biggest Red Russian heads for planting. This will not happen until late October/early November. I also ordered a ton of bulbs and perennials for fall planting for our front yard (tulips, crocuses, black-eyed Susan).