Karen's Garden Delights Journal
2nd week of July 2011

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For those who are regular journal readers, again I have been slipped in keeping my writing current in the busyness of summer and several of you are asking what I am up to. So I am giving up an evening of weeding and sitting down with the computer on the porch so I can enjoy the breeze while I catch up. Beans have been exploding lately. I have two long rows of Jade bush beans which are going into veggie baskets and the rest into the freezer (thanks to the help of my mom.) Here I am picking from the double row of Rattlesnake pole beans which is producing prolifically and I'm wondering what I was thinking when I planted so many. The Rattlesnakes are a slightly flat green bean with purple stripes and have excellent sweet flavor. They do develop a few strings but I am willing to deal with them since the flavor is so yummy. Next to the Rattlesnake row are the yard long beans (both green and red noodles) which should start bearing in a couple weeks.

Cucumbers are another veggies that is producing well right now. Here are three different cukes - suyo long, lemon and Mexican sour gherkins. It's amazing how things in the same family can look so different! The children are gobbling down the cukes faster than I can save enough for pickling so I may end up buying a basket from an Amish produce stand. Interestingly, I am getting many calls for dill. Folks buy their cukes for pickling but then have a hard time finding the dill to go with them. Fortunately I have a good size clump of it from the spring and then planted a second row for later use. There are also several volunteer plants scattered around the garden. Next year I will plan to grow even more to accommodate the dill-seekers and make sure there is plenty left for myself. The other item the pickle makers are wanting is garlic. We started harvesting the soft necks this week and a few of the hard necks. We have 5000 to pull and there will be plenty of smaller ones and seconds that will be perfect for preservation projects.

With the big wedding weekends over, the flowers haven't stopped blooming and I was wondering what I was going to do with them all. A couple opportunities came up that will help make use of the bounty. I have a request to add 4 buckets of flowers to a wedding order that Country Cut Flowers has for next weekend and one of our Amish friends is starting to go to a farmers market in North Canton and wanted flowers for his stand. For the first couple weeks I am making up bouquets for him to take but am hoping that after a while I can just drop off buckets of flowers and his wife can do the bouquet making. I enjoy making the bouquets but there just doesn't seem to be enough time to add one more thing to my weekly schedule right now.