I grew some cats in the kitchen garden in June. Ok, so I didn’t grow them, but my neighbor’s four cats sure do like to be in both the kitchen garden and flower garden. I often see one on the garden bench, but have never seen two at the same time before.
The u-shaped beds in front of the garden bench were planted with Nasturtium Alaska Mix, Curly Leafed Parsley, Germander, Purple Ruffles Basil, Nufar Sweet Basil, Sorrel, Mustard Red Giant, Garlic Chives and Profusion Orange Zinnia. The Sorrel and Garlic Chives are a couple of years old, the rest were new. All the new ones were plants I had planted, except for the Nasturtium, which I planted from seed. It’s difficult to do my row covers on these two beds, so seeds aren’t usually as successful here due to the birds getting to them.
My standard rose in the center is lopsided and leaning. Not nearly as formal and beautiful as I would hope. A small section of it actually died this year, so I wonder how much longer I will have it.
As usual, my cilantro bolted before I could use it. Happens to me every time. You would think by now I would have learned my lesson and planned ahead to use it, but no, can’t teach an old gardener new tricks. Ok, so I'm not THAT old, but kinda getting up there...
The cherry-sized Indigo Ruby Tomatoes started to show in June. They started out almost black, which is pretty cool.
I had planted these Homemade Pickles Cucumbers from Hudson Valley Seed Library in the spring and was so excited to see how well they were doing. I had visions of lots of homemade pickles this year. But alas, my cucumbers were almost entirely wiped out by July by some sort of disease, just as they were starting to get to a decent size. I did manage to get a few for salads at least.
I also made some Spa Water using some of my cucumbers.
Another Hudson Valley Seed Library purchase, Radiant Radish Blend. Got some yummy radishes, then let some stay in the garden in order to form seed pods, which I love to put in salads.
This June photo shows the cucumbers in the background, with the radishes in the middle on the left, Gift Zinnia (also from Hudson Valley Seed Library) in the middle on the right, and Gold Nugget Winter Squash from Seeds of Change in the front. So healthy-looking and beautiful, and all grown organically from seed. In the bed behind this one, you can see some of my lettuces. Also, in the blue pot is my Solanum quitoense (Naranjilla), that I bought last year and overwintered in my greenhouse. It is bearing fruit again this year!
I bought this Japanese Maple this spring from a local nursery. When I had visited Margaret Roach’s garden in NY last year, she had these big pots with Japanese Maples in them and I thought that was just oh-so-cool and had to do my own. My pot is not nearly as big and expensive-looking as her’s, but I still kinda like it. Now if I could only remember what kind of Japanese Maple this is. I left the tag on it, but that is outside and I am inside and feeling much too lazy to go out there right now. The bed behind it has German Thyme, Radiant Radish Blend and Gift Zinnia all from Hudson Valley Seed Library, Flat-Leafed Parsley, and Indigo Ruby Tomato from my local nursery. The yellow flowered plant in the background is Heliopsis helianthoides Summer Nights – a real fav due to the fact that it blooms for such a long time. It does flop over some, though, and it helps to support it in some way.
Not actually in the kitchen garden, but vegetable related, is the hanging basket I have on the screened-in back porch. I bought this at an Amish market in Maryland. Hard to tell here, but it was covered in un-ripe Tumbling Tom Yellow tomatoes and started to ripen in June.
As of late July, these Tumbling Tom Yellows are now all ripe, just like these first few I had in June.
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