Summer, Saturday, and Strawberries!

What an incredible day! I spent the morning in a garden workshop at Gracewood Studio (see my other garden blog for today) and came home to a wonderful quiet afternoon, 75º outside, no wind, and a dozen and a half of fresh-pickable strawberries, not to mention a couple snap peas and the first raspberries of the year.

I rinsed these off and have eaten half of them already, with my supper. For the last few I mixed up an easy instant chocolate sauce (1 Tbsp. nonfat Nancy's yogurt, 1 tsp. cocoa powder, 2 Tbsp. powdered sugar. Adjust quantities for sweetness and thickness), and oh my goodness, what incredible, astonishing flavor. I feel that I am now in a position to HIGHLY recommend Seascape strawberries! They are growing and producing great guns, and throwing runners like it's going out of style, and the berries are so sweet and bright-tasting they practically effervesce. They have exactly the same sprightly bubbliness on your tongue that a perky flute of champagne does. I have no idea how that happens, but it does.

The Liberty apples are growing faster than any of the other apples and pears, about 1.5" in diameter now. The pears have grown, as have the other apples, but they're way behind the Liberties. So far the footies seem to be stretching easily to fit the fruit. I'm wondering if I'll need to go around and partially untwist the footies so they'll stretch more easily. I'm just keeping them under observation for now.

My tuscan kale is so beautifully lumpy! It's also more tender, quicker to cook, and milder than any of the kales I've grown so far. I need to start blanching it because I can't eat it fast enough to keep it under control. It's great with potatoes and vinaigrette.

My bergarten sage in the veggie patch is looking beautiful and blooming more than last year. The other little ones I put out other places are still getting established, but I'm hoping they start looking like this next year. I love the big light blue flowers.

I've learned a bunch about basil this year, trying to grow it for the first time. In mid-may I bought 7 little pots of it and planted them in with my blueberries, and one green one and two purple ones in a pot on the patio. The slugs promptly ate every one I put in the ground, and within a couple weeks the ones in the pot were rotting at the base of their stems and falling over. I told a friend and found that she keeps hers in her greenhouse till June. Two weeks ago, I happened on an herb man at the Oregon City Farmers' Market who told me that basil plants do just fine outside down to 40º, but only after they've been hardened off. My big mistake was buying plants from greenhouses and then setting them out immediately, and not to mention, putting them in the ground without a moat of slug bait around each one. I bought two new green ones from him, and put them outside in the pot with the one living remnant of the purple ones that's still hanging on. I did put a plastic cloche over them when the rain was coming down hard, just to keep them from getting too wet and beat down. July 4th and the dry weather are both coming. The fragrance is fantastic. I pruned the sprout tips tonight and put them in with the potatoes I cooked. Mmmmm. This is turning into a wonderful year.

A great year for veggies

The veggie patch, right center

It not only looks like summer in the garden—it tastes like it, too. I've really neglected this blog this year, but at least I haven't neglected my veggie patch. It's really been producing for me this year. I've been getting snap peas for supper two or three times a week for the last month, I've almost finished off the broccolis—except for the bits the slugs got first—and even got a couple of little beets! I even harvested several servings of potatoes, both from this year's All Blues and from a couple of volunteers I missed harvesting last year.

The hay is working better than ever, one light initial weeding is all I've had to do. And I'm happy to say that when I pull it back to sneak some taters, I see ground beetles and earthworms and little millipedes, all hard at work. I definitely still have slug issues, and probably wouldn't have gotten any broccoli, kale or parsley at all, if I wasn't regularly sprinkling Sluggo around. I am watering earlier than I did last year, but not too much because there's still a lot of moisture in the soil. But the potatoes I've pulled up have been beautiful and shiny with no sign of scabbing. They're also a bit bigger than last year, even this early, because all the new sets got planted in the really good soil.

My garlic is bigger this year, but still not full-sized by any means. I'm going to pull it up on time though, let it dry out, and replant the cloves in October, as I'm supposed to. Maybe I'll get full-sized plants next year.

I harvested an artichoke this afternoon! It's only 3" long but it was starting to look like it might be opening, so I jumped the gun and took it. It had many ants on it, which I hope I knocked off, and I wonder if I picked either really early in the morning or late in the evening, if they wouldn't have gone home? I remember from my very first garden, which was full of ant colonies, that they always seemed to disappear in the evening. Hmmmm. Next time. I probably don't get up early enough in the morning to beat them these days, though. I'm retired—they're not.

I love the companion flowers I planted, and the air is always full of zippy little buzzers visiting them, and (I hope) eating bad bugs. I probably shouldn't say this out loud, but I haven't seen an aphid yet this year. Don't tell anybody.

Yellow calendulas and flowering bolted kale

My Bergarten sage surprised me with some really pretty, light blue, typical sage-type flowers. It's growing so well in this corner that when I found several on sale at the local Bi-Mart, I bought 4 more of them to put some other places where I need robust, sun-proof ground cover. It's lovely, classy-looking, and tastes great.

Bergarten sage in bloom

 I finally got around to planting some zucchini seed, the soil and the air temps should be warm enough now for them to do well. And just in case we do have a long warm summer, I put out a hill of cantaloupe seed and one of honeydew. They're not up yet, but I'm keeping an eye on them. I'm so happy with the veggie garden this year, it's unbelievably great to go down and pick supper. And besides the veggies I've gotten strawberries, raspberries, and my two dozen pie cherries. I'll try to get more pictures up here now that I'm almost done planting for the season.