Midsummer Heat

Gradually becoming greener and greener!

Healthy looking cabbage!

Basil should not be allowed to flower or leaf production will dwindle.

Pole bean vines are now at eye level!

Close-up of a delicate eggplant flower.

Absence makes the leaves grow longer

Summer squash is almost ready for harvest!

The beans grew large enough to need trellising.

Even the watermelon looks promising.

The beets more than doubled in size the week we were in California!

Mmmmm baby lettuce.

The beginnings of a good rutabaga crop.

Winter squash had quite the growth spurt too.

I planted a lapin sweet cherry tree in the back yard.  The wood wedges are used to spread the branches to prevent weak joints.

Apples

After quite the search we finally found two great apple cultivars.  Apples need another tree nearby of a different cultivar to be fertilized so we decided to plant two in the front yard.

On the left is the delicious honey-crisp apple and on the right is the lesser known liberty apple.  We first ate liberty apples in Washington during the sustainable agriculture program at Evergreen.  Sean attests they are the single best tasting apple he's ever had.

Growth Spurts

We thinned out the summer squash once true leaves appeared.

Our store bought summer squash has the beginnings of flowers!

I built a tall trellis to train the tomatoes and pole beans. Our tomatoes are indeterminate meaning they will continue growing larger and larger all season long.  We intend to prune them down to 2 main leaders to facilitate bigger and higher quality fruit.  Hopefully the season will last long enough to allow a good number of tomatoes to ripen.

Newly sprouted loose leaf lettuce.

Although Sean despises beets, I couldn't help but plant a few for myself.  Beets get thinned to one plant every 1-2 inches.

Winter squash soaking in the morning sun.

As an experiment we planted edamame which is a cultivar of the soybean.

Eggplants are in flower too!

Raspberries

We finally found a nursery that still had raspberry plants left!  We're starting with these four but are going to expand to 10-12 plants very soon.  Raspberries need to be trellised and kept away from the vegetable garden because they spread so rapidly.  We cut the grass with a weed-whacker to the ground and dug it in with mushroom compost, lime, and Steve Solomon's "complete organic fertilizer" mix.  Once we get the rest of the plants we will build a trellis.

Sprouts!

All that digging 
and planting is 
starting to pay off! 
We have sprouts 
all over the 
garden now. 

                                                                                                    

Early Cabbage

Winter Squash

Kentucky Wonder Pole Beans

Summer Squash

Strawberries

We inherited some healthy strawberries and here's a day's harvest!