BLUE SKY

Woke up this morning to blue skies, so I jumped into some clothes and went outside first thing to water the garden boxes before the day got too hot and too humid.

The new neighbor's grandma came over to chat across the border, gave me compliments about my garden, (I complimented my husband and gave him credit for the garden boxes, which makes gardening possible) and said it may rain Wednesday – I hope so: the rain will water my garden without depleting the rain barrel cache, and the rain barrels will refill the water I drained off this morning ;-) 

You would think that with all the rain we have been getting, my garden would be doing better than it is; but that is not the case.

My garden is struggling so much, that I am beginning to think planting it was futile and a waste of time: everything is so stunted and scrawny. But, I am a die-hard, and as long as it all is growing and putting out something sustainable, I will hang in there and do what needs done to gather whatever is harvestable … skimpy as that may be/is:

These cabbages will be ready to harvest soon. They are so darned cute – hope the taste is good.

I thought the hanging currant tomatoes would do better than they are (the seed catalog raved about their 'bushiness' and output) – maybe they will IF the sunny blue skies, and summery weather holds. The fruit is very tiny …

Currant Tomatoes. So far, all I have managed to gather from this plant is 5 or 6 tiny tomatoes like this one pictured, every couple of days; this plant does not put out a heavy crop.

The zucchini squashes are holding even – small sized vegetables that don’t seem to plump out; again, that could change IF the weather decides to straighten up; and give us temperate temperatures and sunny blue skies required to give a respectable harvest yield.

Right now, the fruits are setting and ripening – but many of them rot on the vine/stem because of the wet and humid conditions, and crazy fluctuating sultry/chilling temperatures. The Butternut squash, which I was anticipating this Fall, does not look very promising at all, in any respects. The yellow and zucchini squashes are putting out fruits (I counted 3 yellow, and I counted 5 on the zucchini plant), but they aren’t lengthening or plumping out – I do have recipes that call for baby squash, and I could do that – but I do want some of them to get bigger, I’m just not sure that will happen this year.

But, the Marigolds are pumping out the blossoms like mad:

Golden Star Yellow Squash.

Butternut Squash. Has not really grown much at all since it was transplanted into the garden bed. It may be a dud that produces nothing.

Cash Machine Zucchini.

Cash Machine Zucchini. Bonanza Marigolds. 1 zucchini looks like it is rain damaged, and rotting away.

My Apple Trees rebounded from the severe pruning I did to get rid of the blight, and they are leafing out pretty nice. There will be no apples this year, but if I have managed to save the trees, I will consider that a victory.

I do not want to lose these trees to disease - Bob bought them for me for a Mother's day gift, 2 houses and 12 years ago; I am tired of losing things that connect me to my past life's status …

I will be watching these leaves; a few look suspicious.

All leaves on this tree are looking healthy ((((YAY!)))

The gathering of beans from this plant will be very small, but that’s okay. I didn’t want to plant too many Cannellini plants – I don’t even know if I will like these beans; but I have recipes that call for them, so I thought I’d give them a try:

Cannellini Lingot Beans. For drying.

And the Thyme sprigs were dry enough today to pluck and store them; so I did …

And that concludes my ‘work’ day ;-)

Your garden boxes design/build did good, Babe; I was able to get a full-sized garden planted in them. If the harvest is skimpy this year, it will be no fault of yours: the weather is not cooperating – can you talk to Yeshua about that? I’d really like to be able to get more out of the harvest this year than the skimpy take I am anticipating.

I love you.

Always.

OX