Summer is garden time

Summer is really truly here, after a long cold spring.  It took us many weeks to finally get to the garden, because we had SO much rain.  Every day it seemed, and definitely every weekend, it rained.  And rained, and Rained!  I didn't get to finishing the rototilling until well past Memorial day, our unofficial date of last frost, which means everything in the garden was put in very late.

(Click the pictures to make them bigger) 

 One good thing about the wet spring was that it was pretty easy to pound in the fence stakes.  The fence is 6 feet tall, so I'm glad I had Chad helping me since he's so tall.  I would have needed a ladder.

Here's what my garden looks like today.  Despite the rough start, and the fact that I couldn't do very much to improve the soil because of the wet spring, it's coming along very well.

 Here's a picture from our side porch: 

  And here's one from our new attic windows:
 

Despite being sunk pretty deep, the gate posts have shifted quite a bit because of how muddy it was when we put them in.  That's ok, because we never got around to putting in the finished gate.  It has a temporary gate right now made by hooking the metal fence prongs backwards so they catch the other side. 

By far the best looking plants in the garden are the tomatoes.  They're starting to climb now, and they are loaded with green tomatoes!  

My vining zucchini (trombochinos for those in the know) are also beginning to climb, and it won't be too long before they start pumping out big beautiful squash!

The third bed, the accidental one that I wasn't planning on having, is coming along fairly well.  It's slower than the rest of the garden because it has only had fertilizer added and no compost or peat moss to loosen the soil.  To help add some organic matter, I broadcast bush beans along the whole row.  They serve three purposes: 1) to shade out the weeds, 2) to add organic matter when I till it in later, and 3) to give us boat loads of green beans to eat! It's very hard to see, but there are also 3 bush zucchini plants in the middle of this row, and a pumpkin planted on all 4 corners.

Here's a close up of a zucchini plant.  They're getting ready to blossom.

Here's an updated picture of my shed garden too.  The peppers and zinnias are doing great, but the morning glory seeds got washed away by the heavy rains.  Oh well, there will always be next year.

The plants are totally covered in little fruits.  They don't usually ripen until September around these parts.

We found a cool u-pick blueberry patch not far from our house.  We had to drive down a very rustic road to get to it, and we were one of only two groups picking out there.  We managed to get 10 pounds in an hour of picking, which is way better than we did last year at the crowded berry patch we usually go to.

 The man running the blueberry patch told us that we should put the blueberries in a shallow pan and let them rest on the counter over night before refrigerating or freezing.  We followed his advice, and it seemed to increase their sweetness!
 

 

Mostly we have been spending a lot of time inside because of the heat and humidity, but that's ok because we have our kitties.