Friday, August 5, 2011

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
FriSatSunMon
Partly CloudyPartly CloudyIsolated ThunderstormsSunny
Sunny


Wind: SE at 13 mph


Humidity: 16%102°73°101°73°104°73°106°72°






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.

3 comments:

  1. Yipes, that is a big mess of bees!

    If we were in the US, I would SO trade seeds with you! You might also want to check out the Seed Savers Exchange if you've never heard of them. Great source of heirloom seeds from other hobby growers.

    I am so wishing we had okra this year. Have to buy new seeds I think -- or maybe we were just starting too late. I hope next year we have our greenhouse back together so I don't have to sprout seedlings all over my kitchen again ;)

    So glad you linked up. Loving the progress in your garden. So interesting!

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  2. Seed Savers is a great idea, Tiffany, thank you! If you wind up stateside again, and in a hot, arid place, I'll have some tried & true seeds for you.
    I love the idea of your kitchen full of seedlings.Too bad about the okra, it's one of my favorite ingredients to pull out of the freezer in the winter. Okra & tomato 'gumbo' in the summer and duck gumbo w/ okra in the fall/winter... yum.

    I'm looking forward to the Friday update.

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  3. Hey, thanks so much for the nice mention! I love the shot of your bean-eating dog. Green beans are our dog Annabel's favorite snack. Every time I step over the garden fence she comes and sits by it patiently (she doesn't do anything else patiently...) for me to step back over with an overgrown bean or two that she avidly crunches up.

    Hope you've seen some cooler weather. We're very back and forth here.

    Brett

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