Garden goes crazy!

With all the heat and occasional rains of late, the garden has really taken off. I looked back at the pictures I posted in June and it has been a total transformation since then.

For one, the sunflowers are now pushing ten feet or more high. These are close to the tallest in the garden, but the highest ones are already starting to bend under the weight of the seeds as the flowers mature.

That is good news for all the leafhoppers (aka "Hoppies") that live up on the higher leaves and are now out of the kids' reach. Catching hoppies has become one of their favorite pastimes, and I have noticed a slight decline in the populations as the kids are not afraid to pluck them right off the leaves, as long as there are no ants protecting them. They then provoke the hoppy to jump, usually onto the ground or some other plant for which they are not suited. I don't know if they can find their way back or not.

Tomatoes have started which, as I have written before, is the most anticipated moment in pretty much any garden, especially a northern one. Here is Josie with the first two taken on Friday, along with the first onion of any substance, as well as a cucumber and zucchini number.... I am not sure at this point. Probably about the 12th zucchini of the season from two plants. We had zucchini latkas for breakfast in an effort to diversify. It was a simple recipe of 2 grated zucchinis, 2 eggs, a little flower with salt pepper and parsley. I was pretty pleased with the results but I think I was in the minority. Leila's not a big parsley fan and the kids are suspicious of everything that is not drenched in maple syrup.

Right behind the first tomato in terms of excitement is our first watermelon shown here with Elsa's foot (size 10) for comparison. This is really taking off and I think the next rain storm is going to cause spectacular growth on all the melons. Their shoots are growing about 18 inches a day after each rain storm. I am watering about once or twice a week as needed which has close to the same effect. I like to water on Saturday or Sunday depending on the weather because it takes me about an hour to get everything done. It's a labor of love in any case.

Melon garden!

Here are some photographs of the new melon garden, taken on my iPhone (sorry). Apologies in advance for the image quality.

On the left are the italian zucchinis I've linked in earlier posts. I have nothing but great things to say about this variety. At first I thought the leaves had some type of powdery mildew but that is not the case.... they are just wacky heirlooms that have a very striking pattern. Even better is that they started flowering and bore fruit when they were only half this size. The kids love the large flowers and keep asking to pick up the ones that have fallen off... unfortunately that means walking on the bed itself which I really discourage. I think they understand.

Here on the right are my charentais musk melons which are doing much better than I dared hope with the cold spring we experienced. I think a lot of the credit goes to the cold frame keeping them warm when the nights in May were dropping to 40 degrees. I estimate it added 10-20 degrees during the day depending on how open I left it, and about 5-10 at night by trapping the air against the ground. These melons have tendrils that will wrap and climb around the chervena chushka peppers. If the peppers grow high enough it should not matter but at the rate the melons are expanding they better hurry. This is my second year growing these and I am really looking forward to harvesting them in mid-August if all goes well.

The watermelons have started to flower (1 or 2) but that is about all I can report. I have never grown them before so I am being cautiously optimistic. The seeds themselves took a month to germinate and I almost through them out several times before they did. If patience is the secret to gardening... I am doomed.

Ironically, the cucumbers are behind all of the warm weather plants. I have no good explanation for this but the plants appear to be doing well. It may be that they set fruit early and it has slowed their development. It is a russian variety (Bushy) so it is hard for me to believe it is weather related. A dahlia I thought had died came up on the left.... and on the right.

Tomatoes and Sunflowers

Hosting a picture here for a discussion on Seed Savers Exchange forum.

Gardening in hi-res

Most of my gardening pictures are uploaded to Facebook. Unfortunately, Facebook is more about tagging friends and less about image quality, so I always feel disappointed because many of the rewards of gardening can be found closer to the microscopic level. Take sunflowers for example. They tower like giants but running along the stems or the veins of the giant leaves can be found tiny ants, metallic yellow and green flies, and other insects. The leaves themselves form intricate polygons that resemble those formed by frozen permafrost in the arctic. How can you tag that? Or even explain it in fewer than 400 characters or whatever it is that Facebook allows.... And why exactly does Facebook want us to be so succinct? Sure it is not to improve our semantics and critical thinking.

Not that gardening is measured only by the millimeter. Each day I have been watching the peas grow taller, the cucumber family (Bushy Cucumbers, Charentais and Zucchinis) spread across the mulched bed. In a couple of weeks the brown bed will be covered by a thick, prickly green canopy of leaves. The Zukes look to be putting on quite a show. This is the first time I have grown this heirloom variety and it has 8 inch flowers and 14 inch leaves (above) that scream look at me, look at me, look at me now! [It's fun to have fun but you have to know how]. Zucchini don't strike me as very subtle... you pick them when they are small and if you wait a couple of days too long, you end up with something you'd rather play cricket with than eat. But small is good, and I am really looking forward to frying these in chick pea batter with ranch dressing or something equally decadent. Much better than fries, any day of the week.

Both my Blue Capucijner peas and my Blue Lake beans should be towering high right now, but the woodchuck has had other plans. He sneaks under the fence and pulls them down from the trellis, wantonly stripping the vines of all their shoot and leaves. After a week of shock, they are starting to rebound but it will set me back three weeks and make the peas for Josie's birthday a meager harvest.

But they are blue (or purple)! Perhaps it does not take so many when you are purple. It will be interesting to see. If they are any good at all, I am saving the seeds for these. I love the idea of being able to find the peas immediately... no searching through a tangled mess of green.

Tomatoes are best known for the flavor and not their appearance, of course. The measure of any gardener is usually not how large, but how early you have them. All across the internet we see the virtues of cold frames, or walls of water, or greenhouses, or stone walls facing south proclaimed to bring forth the sacred fruit while the ordinary languish in the cold damp May nights in the 40s. I admire the innovation inspired by the tomato. No other vegetable has inspired so many to think outside the box, or return again to the soil after failure. When cabbage worms ate my broccoli, "no matter" I thought. I can buy that at the farmers market. But not the tomato! When the tobacco hornworm caterpillar came I promised my children great rewards for each one they found. I planted marigolds to repel them, dahlias to trick the moths into laying their eggs in the wrong location. Mulched to reduce risk of blight. So here they are, my Stupice, in high resolution!

No clue what this is....

It is the thinnest creature I can recall seeing. Use the chicken wire for comparison. Anyone know what this is? It was right next to the peas and beans. Very odd.