another garden update

Lately I've been planning out my fall garden...not that I'm through with my spring/summer crops...no that is far from the truth. We've been enjoying generous helpings of kale and swiss chard....and when I felt that I couldn't even think about having them for dinner again. I would snip them off and give them to my neighbors. The lettuce...I've been most impressed with. So delicious...I couldn't think of having store bought lettuce after having fresh ones from the garden. And that is why I'm planning my fall garden. I used to think a short garden season was such downfall...oh...not true because I get to look forward to all the cool season crops.

Anyways. I'm planning to dedicate a whole box 4ftx4ft to lettuce. Yes we'll be able to have many varieties... plenty of tom thumbs, bibbs, mesclun baby greens and deer tongue red.

Everything else in the fall garden will have a 1/4 of a box dedicated to each vegetable.

Yesterday I purchased a bag of soil to start my seedlings and within the next couple of days I will be starting my broccoli.

My mesclun greens shaded with a cloth to keep from bolting.

Three corn "heads" coming through.
Tomatoes on the vine. I counted over one hundred tomatoes on the vines. We've been harvesting 2 or 3 tomatoes every couple of days. I think we'll be bursting at the seams with tomatoes here pretty soon. I'm planning on making some sun-dried tomatoes.


We'll be having the ones towards the bottom for dinner this evening.

The broccoli rabe plants I had drying by the bench have completely dried. When you shake the pods the seeds rattle inside. I harvested many to fill a small packet. I placed the dry arrangement in a vase and it's still loaded with seeds. So if any of my local neighbors would like some let me know...you can come by and get some pods.

By the way I got the template for the seed packet in the picture from a book called "You Grow Girl" by Gayla Trail. A chic modern gardening guide book with lots of gardening crafts ideas .

as my garden grows

Today I fertilized, weeded and did some planting in the garden. Mostly everything looks pretty good, except my swiss chard is starting to look like swiss cheese...lots of holes. I will try bunched up moist newspaper to put at the base and see if the culprit little bugs hide in there.
I think by broccoli rabe has bolted. It sent up a tall shoot with flowers. I will wait and see if I can find seeds to harvest for another crop.
Today I discovered that I have some peas. I was standing in front of them and I couldn't even see them at first. I just stood there and stared and the longer I looked the more seemed to pop out at me. They are so well camouflaged. The peas in the pod look like little bumps not much in size. I'm hoping that with time they will grow. I've never grown peas before.
Today I added two more tomato plants to my garden and no I didn't go out and buy anymore of them. They were suckers that I had removed from my other plants. I placed them in a cup with water and let them sit on my windowsill.... in about five days they rooted. It's still amazing to me.
Some sunflowers growing. The tall thin plant is a hardy hibiscus I started from seed.
I planted a pickling cucumber plant today which I bought at a nursery. Cucumbers aren't really popular in my household but I wanedt to fill a space in my garden and also learn about how cucumbers grow. I can always share with my neighbors.