Bees, Tomatoes, Beets, Zucchini, Cucumbers, Beans, Carrots, Cabbages and a Surprise Harvest

Volunteer Sunflower 

Midsummer is upon us. This is a good time for a midseason assessment to see how the garden is doing and to work out any issues before major harvests start to arrive. 

Here is the garden this week

Bees are busily working the garden, pollinating everything from squash and sunflowers to beans and tomatoes. I have noticed a slight decline in the number of bees this season. I think it may be due to the extremely wet winter and spring we had

U-shaped hedge of tomatoes in the community garden 

Raspberry Lyanna 

Rose

Japanese Black Trifele

Brandywine 

The first ripe tomatoes! 

I did a major prune on the tomatoes in the community garden plot. So far, I am thrilled with how they are growing. So much so that I am considering renting 4 plots next season to grow my winter squash, onions, melons and tomatoes. I'd get better production and free up space to move the chicken coop closer to my house

The beets that I planted in spring are nearly ready to pick. The chickens dug up most of the seeds so only a few made it to maturity. I'll be planting more for fall/winter harvest

The first zucchini was picked this week. It was small, but I wanted to add it to a vegetarian meal for my son

Dill and Pickling Cucumbers 

This fuzzy little caterpillar looking thing is a Barese Cucumber Melon

The cucumbers are doing awesome this year. I can hardly wait to make pickles and enjoy the slicers in salads, crudités and in refreshing lemon cucumber water

Rattlesnake bean blossoms 

Fortex

The beans are flowering like mad and the first of them are days away from being ready to pick

We've been enjoying small tender carrots this week that I planted in early May. I also sowed my first set of fall/winter seeds. Varieties I planted are Black Nebula, Kuroda and Oxheart

An exciting picture of dirt! Ha! What you can't see are the Cour Di Bue and Golden Acre  cabbage seeds that I started this week for my fall/winter crop

The potato vines that were growing in the compost pile had died back so I rooted around in there and came up with nearly three pounds of potatoes. I also discovered a rather large head of garlic among the dead potato foliage. Not bad for things that were thrown out

Weekly harvest: 

4 ounces strawberries 

4 ounces zucchini 

4 ounces carrots 

2 ounces garlic 

2 pounds 13 ounces potatoes 

2 ounces tomatoes 

Yearly total: 

48 pounds 12 ounces