Happenings in my garden in July

Somehow I seem to miss harvest Mondays in July.  We are usually visited by family during the month, my oldest son and my husband are both July babies and we have family in to celebrate both birthdays. And even though you would think I would have more time to blog with someone to help wrangle the kids, I have less time than normal! So this is to play catch-up.

The first Japanese eggplant is nearly ready.  The ones we planted out first were chewed down to the nubs and haven't bounced back very well. This one was planted in our raised bed filled with city compost.  And if you were wondering, city compost sucks.  The plants we put in the raised bed kind of stalled out and I had to heavily trench fertilize everything to get growth jump started.

First Japanese Eggplant

The cucumbers we started from seeds are almost ready to give us some snackers, and maybe some pickles as well!  Our nursery bought cukes were heavily cut back due to powdery mildew. We will see if they survive.

Pickling cucumbers sizing up.

Our beans in the raised bed are also WAY behind schedule. But we have our first sightings of baby beans!  I have dreams of beans.... no, not really. But I can't wait to eat some home grown ones. We planted Roma beans, Yellow wax, Asparagus long, and Royal burgundy. Not to mention the Fava, Edamame and Scarlett Runner beans...

Roma Beans

Volunteer Runner beans need to be picked

The Little Gem lettuce is FINALLY sizing up.

Little Gem Lettuce

 My figs have been taunting me for weeks.  Still no ripe figs.  Our tree is heavily loaded this year and I can't wait!  I have prosciutto just waiting in the fridge for "go time."

Brown Turkish Figs



But wait, it isn't all taunting and teasing, we also ate good stuff from the garden this week too.   We had an unexpected night in for dinner and absolutely nothing planned. I think we were planning on going to "Wine Wednesday" at a local restaurant, but Ryle started acting up and we didn't want to have deal with him in public. So I had to punt for dinner. We had a pasta with shrimp, tomatoes, lemon juice, garlic, and fava greens. The greens were so good. It was my first time tasting them, and they did great in the pasta.

Oh, and we had some fresh basil for the pasta as well.

Another night we had black beans and rice.  And a lovely heirloom (Cherokee Purple) tomato salsa made with home grown tomato, jalapeno, onion, garlic, and pimiento de patron (since the jalapeno was not the slightest bit hot). And since there was just one tiny heirloom tomato, I made up a second batch with a store bought "vine ripened" tomato. The comparison was interesting.  The store bought tomato made a bland salsa, the Cherokee Purple was so sweet and complex simply amazing.  I cannot wait to make more.

Salsa fixings (sans Pimiento de patron - it was an after thought)

Rosemary - used to poach chicken

zucchini - that big one ended up being over 2 pounds

Zucchini and first crook neck squash

All in all it was a good week in the garden. I can't wait to start planning for my fall garden.  Well, today is a garden day for me, so I hope it will be productive!  Happy gardening all.