July Garden Update

This is what we picked today from our garden.  Raspberries, peaches, strawberries, blackberries, blueberries and our first tomato.  The raspberries are amazing.  We get a container like this about every other day.  You’d think I would be able to freeze some for the winter but Mr. RK eats a pile of them on his oats for breakfast everyday so I’m just lucky there are some left for me.

Our peaches are really small this year and I know it’s all my fault.  I never have the heart to thin them out the way I know I should considering how small the tree is.  So we have mini peaches.  Next year I’m going to get Mr. RK to thin them out when I’m not looking.

The strawberries are doing better this year.  We moved the containers out to the center of the yard where they would get more sun and they seem to be much happier.  We have 10 of these large pots.  I also fed them today along with all of the other fruits and vegetables in the yard.  Feeding container plants seems to be even more important than the plants I put in the ground.  I’m not really sure about the science behind it, maybe it’s because the nutrients drain out the bottom of the planters.

We’re at the end of our blueberry harvest but it’s just at the beginning of the blackberry crop.  We’re not just picking fruit, I’ve also picked two zucchini this week and the third one will probably be ready to eat in a day or two.  You have to watch those zucchini everyday or they will get huge before you know it.

We’re also eating green beans.  These are the French long beans.  I’ve also got Romano beans growing but they’re about a week behind the French ones.

I also discovered our first cucumber of the season today.  I hope to have enough cucumbers this year to make another batch of pickle relish.  We ran out about a month ago.

We’re going to eat that beautiful little tomato on a salad tonight of home grown romaine lettuce.  I’ve also got spotted butter lettuce.  I like to grow these two varieties because the bugs seem to leave them alone.  Not sure why our bugs don’t like these varieties but I’m not complaining.

Tomorrow, I’m going to plant another couple of rows of lettuce so we’ll have more just about the time  we finish eating these.

Not pictured: kale, chard, green onions, basil and mint.