Summer Garden Update

I spent this morning (before coffee!) in the garden, watering, taking pictures, and throwing the big purple ball for Annie. Time for a little update!

This is my original herb garden. I have onion chives in the back, sage in the front, and Provence lavender in the front right. I’m planning to add the rosemary I currently have in pots on either side of the chives, and probably another Provence lavender on the left side of the sage.

Our tomatoes appear to be getting over the whitefly infestation – thank goodness! We’ve tried so many treatments that it’s hard to say what is working, but I plan to spray them with insecticidal soap again tomorrow.

Our basils are also trying to bolt, so I’m picking the leaves below each seed stalk and trying to keep up. We have lots of pesto and bruschetta in our future!

We have tons of baby tomatoes. Our last three or four tomatoes have blistered (or something equally strange) before they’ve finished ripening, so we are hoping that these turn out okay.

Even our formerly scrawny Rutgers heirloom tomato plant from the Master Gardener’s show in May is producing!

Our zucchini plant seems to just get bigger and bigger…

… while the other squash and zucchini plants next to it seem to get smaller and smaller. No idea what is going on here.

Our two pineapple sage plants have gotten huge! Looking forward to trying some sprigs in lemonade at lunch today.

The English lavender is thriving, too. I’m planning on making some lavender sachés soon.

The purple podded pole beans have turned out to be a real treat! I was given these seeds at a seed saver’s exchange at the library, and I am so glad I decided to plant them instead of the bush bean variety I picked up at Lowe’s.

Here’s a closeup of what’s going on underneath all that foliage. More beans than we can eat! I’m blanching and freezing the extras.

Of our five pepper plants, we have one green bell and one red bell that are really doing well, and we’re holding out hope for two of the others.

This is a closeup of the biggest green bell. Anyone know when this is ripe enough to pick? It’s about the size of the kind you find at the grocery store.

And these are red bell peppers. Not sure when to pick them, either. Do they turn red on the plant?

I had completely given up on the bed where we planted onions, garlic, and shallots in February. We harvested a few small, baby red onions, but that was it. Last week when we mowed down the jungle that was our yard, we tossed the grass clippings in the composter, and when that was full, on the inactive garden beds, including this one. Then yesterday I noticed these little sprouts. Our best guess is that the mulch is keeping old baby onion seedlings cool and allowing them to grow. It will be interesting to see what happens!

This weekend I finally found our pumpkin seeds, so Chris and I planted them in the bed where the Yukon Gold potatoes were earlier. They’re fast-growing sugar baby pie pumpkins, so hopefully we’ll have pumpkins to carve with by Halloween!

Last but not least, my little helpers. They were a little bit rambunctious and over the top this morning, but I love watching them run back and forth as I go around watering the plants.

How is your garden doing?