Harvest Has Begun and the Purslane Has Arrived!

Nice yellow daisy to signal full summer.

Amaranth will be used in salads - the young top leaves.

The second lettuce crop - and another is waiting in a seedling tray for planting.

Cucumbers on the trellis - lettuce under the trellis.

This greenhouse plant is producing nicely.

Garlic scapes - great in stir fry, stemming, and eggs...

These leeks were planted in a trench that is now filled.

Peppers in one EarthBox - there are two planted.

The tomatoes strung up on the twine and mulched.

This is the Quinoa seed head.

This is Lambs Quarter in the onions - looks the same!

This is my new nasty weed - Yellow Oxalis - everywhere with the purslane.

The pole beans replanted in cleaned peat pots and getting ready to set out.

This season is late for starting harvests but then planting was a bit late too.  We have been eating greenhouse cucumbers for the last week and the vine is still producing nicely - great!  The cucumbers in the garden have set fruit and we will be at that harvest soon.  Spinach is done and the second crop of lettuce is being harvested along with great dandelion greens and wild arugula (which I let grow anyplace the seed falls).  We also have a great crop of purslane that always appears after the hot weather sets in and we get some rain - all of which we have had recently.  We WILL be eating the stuff as purslane is a "gourmet" addition to some recipes and fun in salads and curry dishes. However, there is so much that most of it will become compost.

The alpine strawberries are producing nicely and the parsnips are almost at the final thinning.  The leek trench has been filled in and the plants are doing nicely along with the fennel that I had to replant because some bunny decide to snack on it.  He is no longer snacking on anything.

The quinoa has been a real lesson.  First -  one needs to read the whole seed packet - this stuff will get 6ft tall.  Second - it is planted too thick and too close to the tomatoes.  As the quinoa grew it looked amazingly like Lambs Quarters and guess what - same family of plants and the pictures show the amazing look alike.   As a new plant in the garden it seems to like the location and is growing well so later this fall we will see what we get for a harvest and if the birds stay out of it.

Gallic scape's are all gone but they sure were good.  Our first onions from sets are ready to pull and be used.  The tomatoes are all strung up, mulched, and the suckers have been snapped twice now so the plants are heading up the twine - Check out June 26,2011 for info on this and to see an example of snapping the top out of your plant - only did this to one plant this season and the replacement sucker has already taken over.  Luckily, all is not lost on that plant.  I can not stress too much the importance of mulching your tomato plants - they will be so much happier and more productive if you go to the work of mulching them.

The pole beans had to be planted twice as the first planting just rotted in the pots.  I dumped all the soil in the compost bin, cleaned the peat pots with some bleach water and planted again.  Pole beans will be late this year as they are just up and will be planted out in the garden sometime soon - I want at least two sets of true leaves before I set them out.  They will probably get out just in time for the Japanese beetles to arrive - what fun - morning bug picking.

Apple bagging is done and the fruit set this year was poor.  I may have bagged only 250 - 300 apples and with the summer drop we might not have apples to last all winter this year. Look back to June 28, 2010 for more info on apple bagging and a short video on technique. The currents are really doing nicely and I know that we will have a harvest next year.  The blueberries are still an experiment and I will see how they winter and fruit next season.  The peppers in the EarthBox are doing great and have already set fruit.  Instead of flowers in the pot at the front of the house by the sidewalk I have a half  barrel planted with an assortment of herbs and they are getting to the point where one can pass your hand through them and get a great mix of herb smells.

Sorry about the small script on the last posting of pictures - I have to manually reset the size and guess what - I forgot.
Happy Gardening