First Big Harvests

This picture really explains July: Full harvest bowls and lots of sitting in the shade. It was 105 yesterday, and that made it pretty tough to farm. Fortunately, we're all tougher.

The tomatoes are really coming on, as are the zucchinis and peppers. Here is one day's haul, mostly Borgs and Sungolds with some Indigos. The peppers are Beaverdam, Jalapeno, Serrano, and Cayennas.

I picked this lovely bowlful yesterday. Notice all the different kinds of tomatoes: Pink Berkeley Tie Dye, Cosmonaut Volkovs, Indigo Rose, Indigo Apple, Indigo Blueberry, Sungold. Those are Nardello peppers.

The Pink Berkeley Tie Dye are as beautiful as advertized. Metallic green-gold striping!

Sometimes when you get a really tasty, beautiful heirloom, the plants are stingy with their fruit. But that certainly isn't the case here. This big, vigorous plant is just loaded with beautiful tie dyes.

The back ones are Indigo Apple and the front ones are Indigo Rose. They both have great flavor.

The Indigo Blueberries are so fantastic also. Really beautiful and tasty.

I may have gotten a bit carried away... I have 11 tomatoes on this back area, and 6 are Blueberries.

They get pretty red when ripe, but keep a little of that purple hue, especially where they got full sun.

And once again, the plants aren't stingy. This baby is loaded!

The beans are all setting up as well. These are the Flambo from the backyard. The Blue Speckled Tepary beans are just starting to pod up.

Also in the backyard, I have a hedge of basil!

And the gourds are trying to cover up that unsightly woodpile.

I started 2 flats of broccoli on 7-8.

Rick and I had some fun playing with the Summerfest can.

Ah, nothing like a cold beer when you're farming.

Outstanding!

On the social side, we went to Delina's Fourth of July party, wished her dad a happy 80th, and took a peek at her lovely raised bed garden.

Then went to Tom and Nancy's for Cornhole and barbecue.

I finally got the wine vinegar made up. I put the bottles in paper bags to keep the light out.

Mid July saw the super moon.

Summer Sizzle

It's July and summer is here with a vengeance. We're looking at 100+ days for the next couple of weeks. It was 104 yesterday. Even though it's super hot, I decided to start some more basil. I can at least trial the different kinds. There are 10 different kinds here; Lemon, Lime, Licorice, Cinnamon, Blue Spice (vanilla), Genovese, Red Genovese "Red Freddy", Corsican, Persian, and Thai "Siam Queen". I started these on 6-19 but I found that shade cloth lying on the baby starts will kill them... so I reseeded as needed yesterday. I also started a flat of lettuce "Summer blend." I'm hoping to get a late summer crop out of them.

I took a bunch of shots of the garden around the solstice to mark the progress. Everything has grown enormously in the two weeks since then. The beans are happy here, and now they are covered in flowers.

Rick shows off how tall the tomatoes were back then.

If Rick were standing in the same place two weeks later, he'd be invisible! Notice the purple basil between the tomato plants. It made a lovely contrast.

Here's another good overview of the farm on the solstice.  And yes, it was a bit overcast.

These Blue Beauties are shaping up to be a big crop. While we've harvested a few tomatoes here and there, most are not quite ripe yet.

These are the first two Indigo Apples from my backyard. I picked them for dinner when my folks came to visit.

This isn't the best pic, but here we are, enjoying a farm-fresh salad.

Of course we took them to the farm and showed off the chicks and the veggies.

Last Rock Band night was also Keith's birthday, so we all hoisted a glass in honor of Scrod O'Day.

The gourds are looking good. I know... I need more gourds because? I only planted a few of the dancing gourds, and some of the giant "bushel basket" ones.

This might look like an unassuming plot of dirt, but really it shows a truckload of compost that Batch brought us. I think I'll plant summer alfalfa in this spot, and let the gourds ramble over it.

We got this huge pizza pepper. The ones I grew last year in the backyard never got this big!

This is just to remind myself that the beans I planted on 6-17 were up by 6-25.

The Cardinal basil is coloring up beautifully. It also has a very licorice taste.

We are continuing to work on the cabinet doors. This is the latest plan. The posters will look nice displayed like this, but I just hope it isn't too hard to get them on straight and flawlessly.

And our final pic is one terribly obscene zucchini!