The garden in bloom

The garden is in full bloom thanks to lots of rain during pretty much the whole month of June and now some hot weather. Here is a little status of our garden:

The strawberries are pretty much done for the season. We moved/expanded our strawberry patch last year and were afraid the transplant had "shocked" the berries too much, but that wasn't the case since we had a pretty good crop for fresh eating. We still don't have enough to preserve, but we are not complaining since it is so nice to be able to pick a bowl full of strawberries and just eat them.

We were both so happy that we got our first (and only) cherry this year. We have had a pair of cherry trees for a few years, but this is the first year we actually got a cherry. We watched it grow very closely, and when it was ripe, we picked it, split it in half, and ate it right at the tree. It was very sweet for a northern cherry, and we are definitely looking forward to more in future years.

The peas this year are now done, but a second crop has been planted and is just starting to grow. The first crop produced pretty well although since this year we planted shell peas, the yield seemed lower than years before when we had planted peas with edible shells. Still, we have had quite a few meals with some nice fresh green peas. The second crop should start producing sometime in late August.

The green beans are just starting into full production, and we already had a few meals out of them and expect quite a few more. The dry beans haven't started producing yet.

The lettuce crop is growing like crazy as it always does. We love fresh garden lettuce, but it seems like we never can keep up with its production; this isn't a bad problem to have though.

The radish crop was a failure. We moved this crop to a different bed and we believe that it just got too hot and was too sunny because they bolted without really producing. Oh well, last year we had a bumper radish crop so we can't really complain.

The garlic and leeks did amazing this year even though this was a growth year for both these crops. We didn't pick any garlic or leeks so that in future year we will have a bigger healthier crop of both. If the sizes of the seed heads on both are any indication, we should have good crops of both in the future.

Our pair of pear trees has once again produced one small pear. It did this last year, and after anxiously waiting the pear was small but very good. We checked on it just this weekend and it is still small but starting to ripen. It should be ready in a couple weeks.

Our pair of beach plum trees have produced lots of small green plums that we are anxious to see ripen. We did get one tiny plum last year, but this year promises to be better if at least half of the green plums ripen.

The wild blueberries are just starting to ripen and we are hoping to get out into the forest to harvest them sometime this week. Wild blueberries are about half the size of the berries you buy in the store, but since we didn't plant them (nature did), we are just happy to have them in our forest.

The raspberries are just starting to really produce. My wife went out on Saturday and we were both surprised to see a handful of berries ripe and wonderful.

The cucumbers and squash are growing fast and furious. We had a pretty bad wind storm a couple days ago that really knocked them both around, but they have recovered. We just staked up the cucumbers so they could climb vertically instead of horizontally and out of the bed. We have a few small cucumbers that have started, but we haven't seen any squash yet.

The tomatoes are all growing and love this hot humid weather. We have quite a few green tomatoes on the vine, but nothing as of yet has started to ripen. The first home grown red tomato fresh from the garden is always so good, so we are anxiously awaiting them to ripen in a couple weeks.

The onions are doing ok, although I think we didn't give them enough room to grow since they are growing slowly and are still quite small. The wind storm that affected the cucumbers and squash also played havoc with the onions and they don't look like they have recovered as well. This is our first year for onions, so we knew it was going to be a learning experience.

The potatoes are looking very healthy this year. They were moved to our newest garden area and seem to be enjoying the bright sun and deep rich loose soil. All the plants are still green and we don't expect to harvest until fall, but so far things are looking good.

All the herbs are doing quite well this year although we lost rosemary and were forced to replant. We have been eating off of our herbs now for quite a while and actually just harvested six bundles of cilantro and have it drying in the garage.

Overall, we are very pleased with how the garden in doing this year, and look forward to bountiful harvest in August and September.