Garden Progress

Being gone for 6 days at this stage of the growing season, it becomes evident how quickly everything is moving along. The Painted Lady Runner beans I sowed next to the cellar were up and starting to send out runners when we left. Now they have vined up the trellis as much as 5 ft. and have these beautiful red and white blooms.

The broccoli and cauliflower leaves have gotten huge and there will be broccoli for supper in just a couple more days.

I've never grown Tomatillos before. The blooms are small and yellow like a tomato, but shaped differently and more deeply yellow. And the leaves are riddled with holes that the tomatoes don't have. I'm thinking flea beetles may be the culprits. I can hardly wait to get fruits from these to use in making salsa. If I get good production I may need to search the internet for other ways to use them too.

Nearly daily rain plus high heat and humidity must be the reason the dill, cilantro and komatsuna have bolted. I hadn't even harvested any of the komatsuna yet! I have other plantings of both the dill and cilantro so I'll leave these to flower so I can save their seed. I think I'll harvest what I can of the komatsuna and then sow a new tub in a spot that gets lots of afternoon shade in hopes it won't bolt so quickly.



The summer squash I had transplanted into a new bed just before we left were all gone when I got home! Bunnies? Couldn't be sure, but since they were all chomped off at the base of the stem, I think it had to be something bigger than an insect. I'm going to try direct seeding these and then put some sort of bunny-safe contraption over them. The two "extra" lemon squash that I quickly plopped into a couple of bare spots in the enclosed raised bed (just wanted to get them into the soil before we left on vacation) haven't been touched!

And 4 or 5 of the tomato plants now have baby toms! This is the Pink Oxheart.