Thirty Minutes Later

Downpour

I went out to take pictures and got caught in a downpour/thunderstorm.

Seeds Arrived

I got my seeds for fall gardening in the mail today. I am eager to get them in their pots. But we're going on vacation soon and I don't want to kill them by dessication.

Early Summer Success

It has been in the 90s with high humidity (heat index more than 100F) every day this week. And it has rained every day or two. The plants are loving it. I wish we could order up this weather every summer!

My peppers look better than ever. My bella hot peppers have many, mature peppers on them. The thai dragon peppers have many big green peppers. Last year was such a bad year for peppers. Even the thai dragons didn't grow well. And this year is great. I'll have to take note of when I planted/transplanted. I think it helped to make more room for them when the peas came out.

The kohlrabis are small right now because they're very crowded. I picked a couple to thin them out this evening.

The first small, green tomatoes have arrived.

The garlics should have been harvested a couple of weeks ago. One of these years we'll learn and get out there on time.

This guy was supper. I fried up onion and hot italian sausage, then steamed the cabbage over it. Delicious.

This is the first cauliflower I've grown. It is thigh-high now due to our recent heat wave. It takes up a lot of space in the garden.

Garden Weather

It has been rainy and hot. They're predicting thunder storms every night and heat indexes in the 110s every day until Wednesday. Everything should grow now.

Winter Garden Order

I ordered seeds for these items today. I will plant most of these seeds as soon as I get them to get my fall/winter garden started.

Kale - wild garden kales mix

Beet - merlin

Lettuce - arctic tundra blend

Spinach - bordeaux

Chinese Cabbage - soloist

Pac Choi - ching-chiang

Last Year's Garlic Notes

My garden map is on a piece of paper on a clipboard. It is messy and dirty. But it gets the job done in a garden-friendly way.

I wish I had kept better track of which garlics we liked, which grew well, and which came from where.

Here's our sheet says about the garlics we've tried so far:

Chrysalis purple: small

Big unknown: big cloves

Italian late: small cloves, some bite but sweet aftertaste

Little purple: good producer

Chinese pink: tasty

Polish softneck: hot, milder flavor

First Garlic Harvest

Some of the garlics declared themselves done this week. I think the hot temperature accelerated the process. It has been in the mid-80s most of this week. So some of the garlic plants had entirely turned brown. I only harvested two because that is all I can use at once. Here they are:

Inchelium Red

-grown from last year's garlic

-5.0cm wide, 3.3cm tall

Polish Softneck

-grown from last year's garlic

-3.9cm wide, 2.5cm tall

Inchelium red on left, Polish softneck on right.

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Harvested 7/20/11:

Music

-grown from last year's garlic

-5.2cm wide, 3.2cm tall