Under the best of circumstances July is an awkward time for the garden.
Spring greens (spinach, lettuce, cilantro) still in the garden have bolted or browned, strawberries have stopped producing anything but dozens of straggly runners and asparagus has transmogrified into its less known, fuzzy small tree form. Between these only-a-mother-could-love-them beauties are the bare spaces where sugar and snow peas and pak choy have been removed but it is still too early to sow fall plants, July may be the worst time to have a garden guest.
I have a garden guest coming next week.
The wonderful REALTOR that patiently waited and watched while I stood in potential back yards mentally calculating full sun hours and painstakingly measuring for raised beds that were at the time, stored in a rented garage, is coming to see what I “have done with the place” and late July is the date we picked for dinner and a garden tour.
This post is half garden update, half convincing myself that there are still beautiful things to be seen even in this straggly season. Here goes:
The blackberries are huge and I should still have a good mix of ripe and unripe next week.
I always overseed plants like basil so I can use the thinnings on meals while letting the main plants mature.
There is only one butternut squash on the vine so far, but many blooms.
I picked my first round of Envy edamame with only a handful left in the garden, but I had left the wonderful nitrogen fixing plants in the garden as companion plantings to everyone else.
And the rest of this story is tomatoes, the beauties of summer. These are some of the Blue Cream Berries cherry tomatoes before they ripen and take on that creamy yellow color.
The roma tomatoes are thick on the vine and ripening at a steady rate.
A pretty average harvest day with a double handful of roma tomatoes, a couple of Mortgage Lifters, a bowlful of Hartman’s Yellow Gooseberry cherry tomatoes (the most prolific and tallest of my cherry tomato plants this year) and my first Black Beauty zucchini of the year.
Here’s hoping she really likes tomatoes 😉