Garden Tour - June 20, 2015

I haven't been going out in the garden lately.  We've been having quite the heatwave here in Jersey.

I was gazing outside my window, checking out the garden and low and behold, what did I see...

an artichoke!  Three tangerine sized artichokes, I could not believe it.

I had some store bought potatoes start growing inside the potato bin.

I put them inside the garden, because I feel like things that want to grow

should be given the opportunity to grow.  Aren't the flowers pretty?

I am not exactly sure what kind of beans these are, my mom gave me the seeds.

So far, all I have are pretty flowers and lots of vines, but I'm sure we'll get some beans soon.

How cute is that watermelon!?!?

The cantaloupes were only kind of sweet last year.  I read that they are

heavy feeders and extra doses of compost or fertilizer should help them be super sweet.

I'll let you know how that works out.

I have picked so many cucumbers.  I made a bunch of bread and butter pickles using the recipe

I thought I used last year, but it's not the right one!  Crappola.  Now I have to try a bunch of 

different recipes to figure out which is the right one.  This is why I am now writing notes next to all the recipes I try, so me...and possibly the Tyrant if she ever gets into cooking...will know what's what.

Only one of my eggplant seedlings survived, but thankfully, a lovely person on Freecycle had a few extras.  This is one of them.  I can't wait for these tiny eggplants to be full sized.

None of my lettuce seeds survived, wtf?  Very irritating.  Instead, I've started

sticking the ends of romaine lettuce from the store in the ground.  Now we should have a nice staggered harvest of romaine lettuce.

I am pretty sure this was one kale plant that has grown a million side shoots and is producing an enormous amount of kale.  At first I wasn't eating it, because I heard it's tough and bitter after it bolts.

I think I'm going to throw caution to the wind and harvest a bunch for lunch tomorrow.

The onion flowers are turning into onion seeds.

I love this mammoth dill.  It's so pretty, attracts beneficial bugs and makes very nice lox.

These too are starting to go to seed.

Except for the cherry tomatoes, all of our tomatoes are still green.

Those dead leaves are courtesy of the heatwave.

I'm saving this spot for fall crops.  In the meantime, I planted a ton of basil...

...and cilantro, which will probably bolt in the next five minutes just because it's annoying like that.

No flowers or peppers yet, but I'm hopeful.  For some reason, peppers are a crap shoot around here.  Either you get a huge plant with no peppers, or you get a million peppers.  Fingers crossed...

By the way, I used the soaker hoses in twice.  So glad we got them in early.