What's Growing: June 26, 2009

Oh goodness.  We went on vacation for a week and a half and the garden GREW! It was green stuff everywhere, and most of it didn't belong.  The grass was almost a foot high! broccoli pea patch

We threw out the peas (they were past the sweet stage by the time we came home) and transplanted some tomatoes in their place.

The strawberry bed needed major work.  Can you even see the strawberries in this picture?

An hour later, and it looks much better.  We have a late bearing variety that will hopefully fruit in September.

The squash are crazy big.  We spotted a few squash babies and some bees doing a little pollinating.

Raspberries are ripe and delicious.  The plants are only a year old and not producing much yet.

The garlic sent up scapes which we harvested.  Our reading indicates that if you cut off the scapes the plant puts more energy into the bulb which is the more useful part.  We have been using the scapes in meals.

Our dragon tongue beans are producing too.  We are picking the young ones to eat as fresh beans, though they sadly lose their color when cooked.  Some are left on the vine to dry for dry beans.

The pole beans are just starting to send out beans.  We planted another row where some of the peas were hoping to extend the harvest.

After a nice thunderstorm wet the ground, I was able to thin the carrots tonight.  We had a lot of thinnings!  When you wait this long to thin, the babies are tasty and can be eaten too.  Don't thin (like we did last year) and you'll have lots of nifty looking entertwined legs that are impossible to clean, i.e. very gritty.

I love the growing season and learned an important lesson this year: I will never take a vacation for more than 3 or 4 days in June.