In the Garden

Thanks for sticking around! Content has been sparse but I wasn't about to miss the celebration that is Garden Life. Dress for the heat and come along...

102°F | °C

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Wind: SE at 13 mph

Humidity: 16%

102°

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This weather has stymied the garden again so only some plants have fruit setting. The veg that's on the vine/stock/stem continues to grow...

how many okra pods did the last harvester miss? embiggen to find out

That's nearly an EYE-level shot of the okra; I'm 5'5. Despite the nuke-proof aphids the we're getting enough so that I need to chop and freeze a mess or two every other day.

okra, squashes, a watermelon and yes, the hori-hori.

The Chinese Yard Long Beans are coming in, too.

A bunch went into a stir-fry with Ichiban Eggplant and some of the dried porcini from last year's harvest -- it was delicious! For another use of these awesome beans, check out Brett's comment from last week... better yet, travel over to Trout Caviar for some of the best foraging information and recipes available on the web*. His take on eating locally and seasonally has been an inspiration... if only they lived a little closer, sigh.

Oh yeah, guess who else LOVEs green beans of all kinds?

 

"Mine! Mine!" 

Thank goodness he waits to be fed rather than harvest his own. Hum... I should consider harnessing the training potential of these treats...

Watermelon is another plant that's loving this weather. Again, not a lot of new blossoms but the fruit are everywhere.

sugar baby bush (ha!) watermelon growing off the bean trellis

missed this golden midget

ripe sugar baby

This year we planted ice-box watermelons knowing there wasn't going to be much space in the garden or our refrigerator. M mentioned there was a bush variety so I tracked down what I thought would be a compact, sort of upright growing watermelon, the Bush Sugar Baby. Unless you trellis them, they can't be mistaken for anything bush-like; they have short runners (~3.5 ft) but that does not a bush make. The great bush baby watermelon hunt will continue when the spring catalogues appear in the mailbox, in the meantime we have spots in the garden carpeted with watermelon vines and we are inundated with small watermelons (not complaining!!). Like Tiffany at No Ordinary Homestead, we've started saving seeds. If you would like seeds of either of the aforementioned watermelon varieties, just let me know**.

Oh! I almost forgot! Our garden had some auspicious visitors this week, too.

little swarm on the trunk of a juniper

no, i have no idea if they were Africanized, although no pets or people turned up missing.

I really wish they could have hung around but I bet it's like the 'no chickens in city limits' rule and I wouldn't have been able to keep them anyway. "Puhleeze Mister Mayor...?"

*I know, Intrepid Reader, there is no blog roll over there. I'm working on it...

**Yes indeed, I would be a USDA scofflaw for you, Intrepid Reader.