Love this time of year!
We're always rolling in food in August, aren't we?
Green beans finally matured, after weeks of cold windy weather - this is a variety called "Homer's Green Bean;" the seeds were acquired at the spring Seed Exchange at the Mendocino Farmer's Market. IOW, free. I picked about 4 pounds of these yesterday:
Also in the same bed is Dragon's Tongue, a wonderful flat-podded horticultural bean with beautiful flowers:
The problem with Dragon's Tongue is, the beans tend to hang down under the canopy, making them difficult to pick:
In the next bed over, this unruly mass of weedy-looking greenery:
What can it be? Look closer:
Asparagus!
While I was goofing off, others were working:
(Bumblebee on Runner Bean flowers)
Borage flowers are lovely in the sun.
So is young celery!
And Swiss Chard, almost hidden by the Calendula that I mistakenly planted too close:
The compost pile sprouted a number of squashlike plants this spring, so I let them grow to see what they'd become. Happily, they appear to be Small Sugar pumpkin. This is the largest, probably around 6 pounds now, and already beginning to color up. It's a race against the Powdery Mildew though!
The outer parts of the pumpkin vines are still growing and flowering, with these improbably huge, bright yellow blossoms:
Back to the garden - my wife picked 5 pounds of ripe to overripe strawberries. These went into the freezer (most of them, anyway):
I spared you the raspberries, peaches (in Albion! We're getting ripe peaches off the tree while listening to the foghorn!), pears (GREAT year for them), apples, hops, the summer-planted root crops, etc...
Green beans finally matured, after weeks of cold windy weather - this is a variety called "Homer's Green Bean;" the seeds were acquired at the spring Seed Exchange at the Mendocino Farmer's Market. IOW, free. I picked about 4 pounds of these yesterday:
Also in the same bed is Dragon's Tongue, a wonderful flat-podded horticultural bean with beautiful flowers:
The problem with Dragon's Tongue is, the beans tend to hang down under the canopy, making them difficult to pick:
In the next bed over, this unruly mass of weedy-looking greenery:
What can it be? Look closer:
Asparagus!
While I was goofing off, others were working:
(Bumblebee on Runner Bean flowers)
Borage flowers are lovely in the sun.
So is young celery!
And Swiss Chard, almost hidden by the Calendula that I mistakenly planted too close:
The compost pile sprouted a number of squashlike plants this spring, so I let them grow to see what they'd become. Happily, they appear to be Small Sugar pumpkin. This is the largest, probably around 6 pounds now, and already beginning to color up. It's a race against the Powdery Mildew though!
The outer parts of the pumpkin vines are still growing and flowering, with these improbably huge, bright yellow blossoms:
Back to the garden - my wife picked 5 pounds of ripe to overripe strawberries. These went into the freezer (most of them, anyway):
I spared you the raspberries, peaches (in Albion! We're getting ripe peaches off the tree while listening to the foghorn!), pears (GREAT year for them), apples, hops, the summer-planted root crops, etc...