twilight in the garden

A potato in the ground.

A potato in my hand.

Potatoes.

Chopped. With Rosemary from the garden. Later to join olive oil in tin foil on the grill.

Enjoyed the first tomato of the year. It was a Sungold, and it tasted like summer.

Ripening...

This will be a yellow Zucchini someday.

It's been so hot. Wet newspaper and mulch are the only things keeping these plants from certain death.

A Charentais Melon.

A Blacktail Mountain Watermelon.

A Dhalia. The first Dhalia of the summer.

My book The Kitchen Gardens of France says that Dhalias are a traditional flower planted in vegetable gardens. I needed no further convincing.

Zinnia.

Purple Coneflower with bee.

Purple Coneflower in the sun.

Purple Coneflower with pink Hydrangea.

Zucchini

These pictures are a few weeks old by now, but I can't let the arrival of the first Zucchini go undocumented.

These were the first two picked, both Costata Romanseco. They ended up on the grill with some oive oil and parmesean cheese.

There seem to be quite a few more on their way, with a couple of the yellow crookneck variety looking to ripen later this week. To prevent the stem rot/bug problems that I had last year I wrapped the base of the stalk in a layer of tinfoil. It seems to be working so far as I've already doubled last years harvest with no end in sight.

It's been a tough stretch of weather with 95+ degree days and little to no rain in recent memory. The garden has required almost daily soakings to keep everything from simply shriveling back into the dirt. No rain in the forecast for the next few days either. Tomrrow's high: 100 degrees...

peas please

Pea season has officialy come to a close in the garden. Yesterday I picked off all the remaining pods, and then pulled the vines out and sent them on a one way trip to the compost pile.

This was the first year that I planted a 'shelling' pea as opposed to the 'sugar snap' or 'snow' varieties, and I have to say I was really pleased. It was easy to enjoy them on the fly, as they were quite tasty eaten directly from the pod while working in the garden.

Also, cooked in some boiling water, and served with a bit of butter and salt they were a real treat. After I shelled and washed this last bunch I put them in a ziplock bag and stuck them in the freezer to save for some future meal. I am thinking of trying this pea pesto...

Growth

After another short trip away from home, and an extended absence from the blog, there have been many changes in the June garden. The squash, zucchini, and pumpkin plants in particular seemed to grow to about 10 times their previous size while I was gone.

The lettuce continues to be abundant, and the peas are now in their prime as the teepees are literally dripping with fat, ripe pods. And most exciting of all the tomatoes continue to develop beautifully with numerous blossoms and immature fruits promising a glut of tomatoes in our future.

The San Marzano, and Amish Paste tomatoes have all gotten up to about 4 ft tall and are starting to set fruit.

Tomato blossoms with lettuce in the background.

Immature Sungold tomatoes. These will probably be the first ripe ones this year.

Amish Paste tomatoes.

These Green Arrow Peas are a traditional english shelling variety.

They can be shelled and cooked for dinner, but so far they've mostly been eaten by being popped directly from pod to mouth.

A sea of lettuce varieties.

Costata Romanesco zucchini.

A genuine pumpkin patch.

Butternut squash, with sunfowers poking through.

The melons continue to sprawl lazily on their black plastic. Quite a few blossoms have already appeared.

Charentais melon blossom.

A pot of marigolds growing on the patio.

Basil growing in an old coffee can.

Assorted patio herbs, flowers and a Sungold tomato.

Back from a 4 day trip and the garden continues to grow in leaps and bounds.

The potatoes are about waist high, and I planted red bell peppers and giant ancho peppers behind the potato row.

Tomatoes seemed to grow a foot over the weekend. I noticed some small red bugs around the base of some of the plants. I'm not sure what they are but I'll need to keep an eye if they start to do any damage.

Winter squash coming in well.

The peas continue to climb, and I noticed the first blooms on them today.

A pepper seedling viewed through potato leaves.

Looking head on at an asparagus fern.

Honeysuckle with neighbors roses in the background.

Some patio pots that will soon hopefully be filled with basil, marigold, coneflower and strawberries.

Tomatoes are in- and other news.

There is lots going on in garden at the moment. With weather consistently summer-like, and the last frost date well in the rearview mirror, planting has started in earnest.

I put the Rhubarb in the ground a few weeks back, and it is now starting to make it's first appearance. I am really excited about the Rhubarb partly because I am looking forward to the pies this Rhubarb will grace in the future. Also, it makes me remember nostalgically the rhubarb patch at our house growing up. It's a double whammy.

The row of potatos is also looking rather healthy as they feast on the spent coffee grounds that I've been carefully feeding them since planting time.

The biggest project of the weekend was getting the tomatos in the ground. It's the first weekend of May (the same time I planted them last year) and the weather seemed primed to finally get these plants into the garden.

I've had black weed barrier over the tomato beds for two weeks, getting things nice and warm. I am trying to give each plant plenty of space this year as I certainly want to avoid the blight infestation that cropped up last summer.

So it's offical, the tomatoes are in the ground. Here's to a long and tomato-filled summer.