Garden in the second half of July

 The world is growing like mad.  

Front yard tomatoes are ripening nicely!

The orange ones are Azoychka.

By July 25, we are harvesting Cherokee Purple, Azoychka, and San Marzano tomatoes.  The green ones were not planned - either the branch broke or they dropped by mistake.  They will have to ripen indoors.

Is this the look of summer?   - barbeque chicken, tomatoes with oil and garlic, macaroni salad, cottage cheese,  It doesn't get much better than this!

Unless it's this.  A month early, on July 21, 2020.

The first fresh tomato pasta of the summer.

Chop tomatoes and add garlic, parsley, basil, and olive oil, and let it sit at room temperature.

Cook "Linguini Fini", a thin linguini, and toss with butter.  

Top with the tomatoes and add a good cheddar and good olives (These are Turkish, oil-cured.)

This daylily is new to us this year.  

Another daylily new this year.  The plant itself is tiny, but the flower is normal size!

A bumblebee enjoys the hosta flower.

We are seeing more bees and more variety of bees this year.

The butterflies particularly enjoy the zinnias:

The aconite (wolfsbane) is finally blooming on July 21.  The pink flowers are zinnias and the orange are calendula (self seeded from in front of the house!)  Notice how the plants are dwarfing the birdbath.

Can you see how tiny the daylily plant is.  I don't think it is 8 inches tall!   It's new this year and is striving to take its place in the world.

The delphinium is a powerful purple!

The structure on the right, with the Tibetan prayer flags, is a frame for dahlias.  Notice that some of the pink zinnias have gone through the second frame of wire.  Come back later to see the August pictures to see how high they really go!

The tall plant, above, left, looking a bit like Cousin Itt, is brugmansia.

The zinnia garden is filling in nicely.  This is the backyard, and this garden extends from near the green shed toward the back door.  The screen house was essential last year because there were so many biting bugs.  This year, so far, we have used it only once.  There are lots of beneficial bugs, like butterflies and bees, but, so far, no biting ones!

To see other garden pics:

This page: 2nd half of July.

First half of July garden.

Garden at the End of June

And the first half of June is here.

You can see the end of May, 2020, here.

Here is the first week of May

Daffodils 2020

The middle of April is here.

First week of April.

Garden in the First Half of June

At the end of May the tomatoes were planted in the front yard, since that area gets the most sun on our little property.  They will be supported by fencing as they grow.  In the immediate foreground, with a stake, is a brugmansia, which is this year's learning project.

 The beginning of June is dominated by iris.  We were surprised at the number of blooms on the yellow siberian iris.  These plants were transplanted from the farm last year.  There they rarely bloomed, and never in profusion.   The purple siberian iris are also doing well this year.  The little iris are new plantings.

 We are delighted at the number and variety of birds enjoying the birdbath.  Some just perch on the edge to get a drink.  Others flutter and bathe.  Fun to watch.

This is a powerful purple.  Especially lovely at dusk.

A year or two ago a friend gave me a large clump of chives.

We divided them to spread around the garden.  

They have been wonderful!

 We have made chive blossom butter and chive vinegar with the bounty.
Check that out in the blog post on experiments with extracts.

Pansies are such a happy flower.  D grew them from seed, and there are 4 different ones.

 We have tried a variety of alliums this year.  This one is Allium Bulgarica.  It's a kind of rangy plant.  Current thinking is that they need to be massed alone.

The white bleeding heart has very few blooms this year.

Years ago we discovered Mara des Bois strawberries.  They taste like real strawberries.  They are everbearing, which means that after a bounty in early June, we may get a few berries all summer.

Looks like we picked 180 berries.  About 12 cups of sliced strawberries.

By mid month the peonies were blooming.

We put in five plants.  Three bloomed this year.

This white one was the first to flower.  

It will be followed by two light pink ones.

This is the first brugmansia to bloom.

Actually, we were not expecting any blooms this year.

To get an idea of scale, that is not a flower pot - it is a waste basket half buried in the soil.

They must be watered at least once a day, and sometimes two or three times.

At least they droop and tell you it's time for more water!

They will be brought in for the winter and taken back out next year.

Does he look scared?  That is a huge bee in the rhododendron by his ear.

First Tomatoes of 2016

The first to ripen are the Cherokee Purple.
This is a tiny one - sitting on a bread plate.  The large ones weigh as much as 2 pounds!!!

The flesh is firm with the liquid exactly as you remember as a child.  It's a tart, flavorful tomato.  Makes amazing BLTs.

Tonight we're having it with English Bacon from Balson Butchers.  We make an order once a year.  It comes in a freezer pack with dry ice.  The bacon is packaged in 8 ounce portions.  It's a real treat.  Tonight D enjoyed the bacon, tomatoes, and baked beans.

In the spring, D started three types of tomato - San Marzano, Cherokee Purple, and Dorothea's Green.  The Green is my favorite tomato ever (but Cherokee Purple is a close rival!)

This is a fully ripe tomato.  Delicious!

We are now in a race with Late Blight to see how many tomatoes we can before they are destroyed by blight.  The middle of the green tomato had blight.  Just cut away the bad parts, and do not compost the rot.  (Septic system loves it.)

Tomorrow's project is freezing if it's hot or canning if it's cool.  I have about five gallons of tomatoes to process.  Lots of gorgeous basil and fresh garlic and parsley to add to the pot.

A fine time will be had by all!