2nd week of July 2009

Sunflowers This is the time of year that the garden seems to be smiling at me. The cheerful faces of the volunteer sunflowers are scattered around my main garden and make it a pleasure to work among them. They also may be smiling because they just enjoyed a rain shower, the first in about two weeks. Everything was quite dry and the 1/2 inch of rain helped but more is needed to reach down to the roots. It has been a real challenge to keep the new broccoli and cabbage transplants watered and alive. I tried covering some of the summer lettuce transplants with upside down nursery flats to give them shade as they get established. I also have been pleased by the lettuce bed growing under my "shade blanket" - a plastic snow fence draped over the trampoline cold frame. The lettuce hasn't gone bitter yet and my veggie customers are very happy to have salad extend into the summer heat. One advantage of the dry stretch is that conditions were ideal for collecting seeds from arugula, salad burnet, sorrel, peas and other seeds that I'm saving. Soon I'll be able to bag and dry the winter lettuce and red romaine I let go to seed.

Three Bean Varieties We are enjoying a few tomatoes every day, the first of the cucumbers and piles of beans. In the bean department, we have green and yellow beans plus Roma beans (a flat Italian variety) and Dragon Tongue (flat yellow with purple streaks). For my Lehmans demonstration this week I was snipping beans and while I was working on a pile of Dragon Tongues, there were several folks who had to look twice at my bowl filled with those playful beans. They aren't just a novelty and do have excellent flavor, our four year old loves eating them raw and our kids devoured the pot of creamed Dragon Tongues we made for lunch one day. Right now our meals seem to be either some combination of beans and potatoes or a stir fry using various peas, broccoli and onions. The sweet onions are so tasty the children are even requesting them fried by themselves.

Annie's Flower MoundA special excursion this week was to go with several friends on a little garden tour that involved my garden and the gardens of two of my Amish friends. My mom and I acted as chauffeurs and we had 15 of us walking through each garden, asking questions, sometimes nibbling a new herb or gathering seeds from an interesting flower. One garden included a half acre of cut flowers and another included a gorgeous flower mound (pictured) in addition to their family vegetable garden. I often have visions of going on tours of fancy gardens but probably it is more valuable to see the gardens of real people who enjoy growing things for their family. We ended the evening with some tasty refreshments and herb teas and continued sharing more ideas around the table till after dark. Truly a delightful evening and I think everyone went home with some new ideas to try in our own gardens.

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