Veggies should be cooked *after* being harvested - NOT before

Hot


Hot


...and if that's possible, hotter.


Not much I can do for the garden these days. Trying to do some emergency watering. We've moved out of our house* for a few days as we don't have AC and it's 96° inside. I can't function in that kind of heat. I wish I could take the plants with me... sadly they're stuck in the hot, hot, hot back yard. The pumpkins are wilty...


The flowers are shriveling up and dying


And the peppers are sunburned.


Not much to do but wait out the heat. It should be a wee bit cooler by the weekend. Fingers crossed.

*We have an old house with no AC. Fortunately my sister lives in a newer house with wonderful central air. We've all been crashing there. My daughter has been having a great time with her cousins!

The July Garden

So much to talk about but maybe later... how about just a picture heavy post? Who'd like a tour?

FLOWERS
I love the color of this daliah


Morning Glories in all their glory

Marigolds and cilantro

Zinnia



I LOVE SQUASH!
This is the beginning of a standard sized Halloween Pumpkin


One of the many sugar pumpkins coming along


A small winter squash on it's way...


This will should make a beautiful pumpkin soup with its skin as a soup tureen.


A WEE BIT OF A HARVEST
Yellow crook neck squash and cucs... wish I'd gotten more so I could make pickles. Just not enough of them ripened at once.


Pulled the garlic. Not sure why they didn't get big. Most all of them are small. Garlic and I didn't make friends this season. I'll try again next year. Is it better to overwinter or plant in the spring?


MORE TO COME
This strawberry isn't any bigger then a dime but when allowed to fully ripen (hard to get them that way with my preschooler snacking in the strawberry beds...) they are delicious! The most intense strawberry flavor you can imagine. I wish I had a few more of the plants.


These are the Sweetheart tomatoes I was talking about, pictured here not quite ready to pick. So far not a single one has made it into the house. They are delightfully sweet and have replaced the shelling peas at the garden snack food of choice.


This is Oregon Star... all so far are are green but they're a determinate sauce tomato so I expect when they do ripen it'll be all at once.


The corn is coming in but isn't quite there yet...


The plants sure are BIG though! (Tomatoes in front, corn behind... that's a 6' high fence it's growing in front of!)


IT'S NOT ALL SUNSHINE AND ROSES
I found this little guy wrapped up in a leaf on my jalapeno pepper plant. Anyone know if it's friend or foe?


My artichoke also has a nasty infestation of black bean aphids.


At least I have a wee bit of help. I really wish she'd bring in more family and friends though.


I'm saving a good one for Garden Bloggers Death Day at the end of the month... Oh well. No one's perfect.

HOT

It's 108° out right now. I'm hiding in the basement. I gave everything a good deep soaking last night and this morning. Hope it doesn't all wilt. I'd go out and check myself but I'm afraid I'd turn into a puff of smoke and disappear.

I'm baaaaack!

Yes! I was able to go and purchase a new computer today. This makes me crazy happy as you can well imagine. =) I have so much to get caught up with but I just wanted to let you all know that I'll be posting much more frequently again. YAY!

Oh and I meant to say that I plucked my first grape tomato off the vine yesterday. I was hesitant to buy Sweethearts because they were kinda spendy seeds. However... totally, totally worth it. Brilliantly sweet and fresh testing. I died and went to heaven!

Pepper thief!

Someone's been eatin' my jalapeno peppers! I had four and now I only have one. I don't think they're being eaten by bugs because the whole little peppers are gone - no sign of them at all. Disappeared without a trace! I just hope the last one doesn't get eaten too. Leave me one please?

Blueberry Lime Jam

Blueberry Lime Jam
Yeild: about 6 half-pints

4 1/2 cups blueberries
1 package (1.75oz) powdered pectin
5 cups of sugar
1 tablespoon grated lime peel
1/3 cup lime juice

Crush blueberries one layer at a time. Combine crushed blueberries and powdered pectin in a large sauce-pot. Bring to a boil, stirring frequently. Add sugar, stirring until dissolved. Stir in grated lime peel and lime juice. Return to a rolling boil. Boil hard one minute, stirring constantly. Remove from heat. Skim foam if necessary. Ladle hot jam into hot jars leaving 1/4" headspace. Adjust two-piece caps. Process 15 minutes in a boiling-water canner.

Source: Ball Blue Book of preserving

Stefaneener, the recipe as requested. I hope you get a chance to make this!

Good News, Bad News

Well not having a computer has really been a big stinker. I miss you guys!! I hope by October I'll be back in business.
::waves:: Hi to Momma_s and Sue the newest friends of Gamine's Garden! =)

THE GOOD:
In the meantime the garden's been doing well in general. My green beans have been going nuts but they're almost done now. I was hoping to can some of the last of them (Dilly beans) but realized that I didn't plant any dill! Oh noze. I love pickled beans. We've been eating them steamed and sautéed but I'd really like some pickled one's as hors d'œuvres at Thanksgiving. I must remember to plant more next year.


My carrots are also coming in and are quite delish! The purple one's don't taste any different then the orange ones but they are fun to look at. Cooking them didn't diminish their color either which was fun. The orange one's grew a bit more vigorously then the purple's. I'm planning on reds as a fall crop. We'll see how those do.

Many of our flowers are in bloom now too...


Since my preschooler is worse then the squirrels and jays when it comes to eating the berries out of our yard we went to a U-Pick farm a couple of days ago to get some blueberries since there was less then a few handfuls at home! We picked a lot of berries! (No I'm not wearing white stockings - I'm just really that pale!)


We made jam with them yesterday. Why is it that canning had to take place on the hottest day of the year? I seriously think my sweat was sweating. Ha! It was 115° in my kitchen in front of the stove. We have no AC. On the other hand - blueberry/lime jam and blueberry/orange jam - YUM!

I also need to get a canning rack for the smaller sized jars I used yesterday. The rack that came with the pot was for pints and the jam recipes called for half pints. Does anyone know where I can get just the racks? I assume I'll have to go on-line.

I was a bit smarter today and made freezer jam. It's a good batch too. =) ...and there's *still* blueberries left! I could probably make another batch of freezer jam if I was motivated.

Also pulled a ton of parsley out of the garden. It was crowding the tom's and basil. I coarsely chopped it and it's now in the freezer on a cookie sheet. Later tonight I'll put it in a zip lock freezer bag. It'll be perfect for using in soups, stews and broths this fall and winter. I have a load more that I need to pull and process out of the garden but honestly, I'm tired of standing on my feet.

Oh! And I found the first cucumber on the vine a few days ago. Haven't picked it yet.... though I did harvest all my yellow onions and braided them. So pretty!


THE BAD:
I'm still having fungal issues with my crook-neck squash. I have yet to eat even one. Foo! I gave the plant a cornmeal/chamomile bath a week or two ago. It seems to have stopped the ramped blackening of the squash (blossom end rot?) but I still have yet to get anything eatable from the plant.

One of my artichoke plants has a raging infestation of Black Bean Aphids. I tried just spraying them off but they were literally back in full force in just a few hours. I need to make a mix of water, oil, and soap to spray them off with.

First of the month pictures!

June


July - all the lettuce has been pulled now and the onions have started to flop over. You can really see the tomatoes in the back which are quickly becoming monsters! Nothing red yet, just lots of little green orbs teasing us. I'm loving the bright spots of orange the marigolds and nasturtiums are providing us. =)


June


July - You can see the broccoli is gone now (the big bluish leafed plants on the back right) and the green beans have shot up the trellis. We don't have any of those ripe yet but very soon, they've made little squiggles and will look more like a real bean in the next few weeks. The potato vines have gotten huge and the lettuce has all been picked from this bed now too (pulled the last head today). Basil and various pepper plants in the front. Hope they get big, big, big by next month's portrait.


June


July - Not the best picture ever (bad lighting - sorry!) but the parsley has taken over and crowded out the Walla Walla onions. I'll have to be sure to not plant that in this bed next year. I think just flowers? I also lost an asparagus or two in this mini-heat wave we've been having. I'll have to be sure to replace those next year. I did an extra deep watering today so I hope that helps the rest of them.


June


This was just about a week later when the flowers were in bloom


July - the day lilies are done and now the daliahs are just about to bloom, they're coming up behind the pots.


June


July - All the peas are done now and the vines pulled, I started to trellis the pickle plants now so the cucs aren't laying on the ground. I should've taken a picture just before I pulled them - they completely engulfed the fence. I also yanked out the icicle radishes I'd left in there as a companion plant. They'd all flowered and were enormous - the size of my forearm! I just can't believe how big the corn is now too. (That's a 6' high fence it's standing in front of) I guess when you see it every day you don't realize how big it's gotten in a month's time. Yesterday I noticed the corn is tasseling so I hope we get a bunch of yummy ears by next month. Those big leaves dead center are the yellow crook neck squash which is having fungal issues - bah. All the squash are rotting from the end of the blossom. I should do something about that but I haven't gotten around to it yet with all the company.


June


July - The blueberries are just about ripe for picking. I know this because we literally had a flock of bluejays parked in the bed watching the berries just waiting for them to turn dark. When the jays weren't loitering we had squirrels lined up on the fence staring down at the bushes waiting on the same thing. Good thing my kid likes to scream and scare them off - she was loving it (me? not so much) so I put the netting over the bushes. We don't have the jays anymore but the squirrels still try to sneak in under the wire. If they're that ambitious I say let em have one or two.


Compost for my compost fiends out there... the bin on the left holds all the spent shelling pea vines where we're collecting browns and greens. On the right composting compost... Sunflower coming up in the black pot to the left along with some black eyed susan vines. (not pictured: my morning glory vines are finally going to put out a few blooms soon too - I'm very happy to see this happen! I'll post some pictures of them when they do)


The last of the peas!

Potato Fruit?

Okay, obviously I've never grown potatoes before... these came after the flowers. I didn't realize that potatoes made... fruit? Can anyone point me to more information about these.