Backyard Garden

Garden update July 12. We have had more rain and sunny days mixed so that makes for less watering needed which is good. We are seeing some pests but nothing we can't manage for the time being. Flea beetles, cabbage moths, cucumber beetles, and slugs are the main culprits right now. The garden in it's crazy glory. A shot of the rows that have gherkin cucumbers, green beans, dwarf variety zucchini, patty pan squash, storage cabbages, napa cabbages, onions, peas, nasturtiums, marigolds, some stray tomatoes and basil. The nasturtiums have flowers finally! Gherkin cucumbers, so excited to see how this works out. Patty pan... Tiny zucchinis are forming. Scarlet runner beans and pickling cucumbers climbing and flowering. Red flowers and baby beans. Yellow flowers and tiny cucumbers forming. Ginger is sprouting slowly, we may have to bring it inside but we are hoping it will keep going long enough for a harvest before it gets too cold. Marigolds and tomato plants. Brandywines are start

Garden update July 5th. Lots of work in the garden as summer moves along. We had a long stretch of heat and no rain then days of rain, lots of growth and changes. I planted the empty row with our second round of lettuces, kales, chard, and more onions.We plan on one more set of planting in late July (before August but close to August) for early fall harvesting. It's hard to decide to pull plants from the garden but our lettuces had gotten very bitter, and the spinach was not producing anything. We had had a good run of eating lettuce everyday and then they started bolting.  The lettuce is a very tender variety and not great for cooking, if you have bitter lettuce you can soak it in cold water spin the water out and then cook it to get one last harvest. I let the sturdy and delicious asian greens go to seed (and they have such pretty flowers) to collect the seeds and try planting them.  We had out first harvest of lavender and mint to dry and store. Ginger growing in a tub. Caged to