06-04-2014 lily time!

After a few dry days, we finally received a 1/4 inch yesterday and it's trying again right now but less successfully.

We have been blessed with several cool days that have positively impacted the garden. It just looks great right now!

My wife ate the last peas a couple of days ago and, today, we had our first bush beans. For those who have tasted  bush beans, fresh out of the garden, steamed in the next few minutes, you know nothing much beats that taste.

The tomato plants look great; peppers and eggplants still are undersize for the time of year- a result from the cold spring- and the cucumber vine are growing well with one exception: a cuke called Adam F1, my favorite that, this spring refuses to germinate. Bad seeds!

Unwaxed tomato.

cukes

The strawberries seem to have disappeared quickly this year but, now, I collect a handful of variously tasty raspberries. I usually pick them early morning after bringing our neighbor his paper and  during my "morning  garden inspection"; that great moment when you discover what opened up last night like my first sunflower, for instance.

05-25-2014 Jamming time!

   A few years ago, as we were coming off the Appalachian Trail in NC, my older son and I ran into a patch of the most savorous wild strawberries. (That expression always makes me think of Ingmar Bergman!)  I took six plants, a small number that would not impact their existence in the mountains. I planted them at home where they have reproduced well.

    This year, the exceptionally cold winter must have revived their ancestral urges because they produced like crazy. Enough to share with my neighbors and enough to make ...(semi) wild strawberry jam.
Being appalled, as usual, by the amount of sugar those recipes require, I cut it in half which left me with a runnier finished product but a totally amazing, ultimate STRAWBERRY FLAVOR!

And, now, my next berries are getting ready. Those will not be brought into the kitchen
They will be appreciated, right there in the garden ...from vine to palate!

05-17-2014 After the flood.

Just as I was getting worried about ten days without rain and rising temperatures, it came! Just the day before I was making fun of the 1 inch prediction knowing that some of those storm systems coming from the West split just before Raleigh and reform, with a vengeance on the East side leaving our garden high and dry.

Well, this time we received 4.25 inches. What I call a welcome rain.

I had been working frantically the couple of previous days transplanting cucumbers, eggplants and peppers, staking tomato plants getting just tall enough to get smacked down by a storm.

Perfect timing! I finished it all in time for them to soak in the welcome flood. The day following the rain, my wild flowers looked a little beat and the roses had lost most of their petals but the veggies look great and the wild strawberries are starting to produce. Weather/gardening coordination at its best!

Happy gardener!