Summer Fruit is Coming

Summer Fruit is Coming

A June Update

cherries, author’s photo

It’s June, the warm weather has arrived and our garden is growing.

We have lots of lettuce and kale that gets picked every day. The snap peas and snow peas are growing fast now. The pole beans are catching up. My sunflowers have finally started to grow. I am happy about that. I didn’t have many left. They didn’t do well this year.

kale and lettuce, author’s photo

snow peas and snap peas, author’s photo

The berries are my favorite. I pick a handful of strawberries every day. We picked our first blueberries, first raspberries, and we actually still have a few cherries. The birds devour them every year. The trees are too tall to do anything about it. I bought some thornless blackberries and Pomona red currants at the nursery to add to our berry patch.

bluenerries, author’s photo

raspberries, author’s photo

author’s photo

The apples and peaches are doing well. I found coyote scat under our apple tree when watering a few days ago. That was surprising. I have heard them the last few nights.

apples, author’s photo

peaches, author’s photo

The tomatoes are starting to grow taller and they are starting to get flowers. I only bought two. We were given four more. Plus, I have about a dozen volunteers coming up. Not sure what to do about those yet. We are enjoying the onions. They are getting bigger every day. I picked carrots today. We had them for dinner.

rainbow carrots, author’s photo

I had some trouble with slugs eating my wax beans. After I noticed, I built a fortress of pinecones around the little defenseless sprouts. Then I grabbed coffee grounds and put those around them. I ordered some diatomaceous earth. I also put our beer traps. I found the slugs in the beer traps over the next few days. That activity has stopped and the beans are starting to come back. I’m so happy. I seem to have won that battle and saved most of my beans.

Cherokee wax bean, author’s photo

I bought more marigolds and a beautiful dark purple petunia to go with them. I put them with the new tomato plants. I put more marigolds with the bell peppers and jalapenos that I moved to a warmer location.

marigold and petunia, author’s photo

The chaos garden is doing well. I need to start thinning out the seedlings. There are a lot! I see little radishes starting to form. So fun.

my chaos garden-beets, on left, dill, lettuce, radishes on right, author’s photo

marigolds, author’s photo

Our herb garden is doing well. Besides the dill, we have savory, sorrel, oregano, rosemary, lavender, parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme. I am really enjoying the nasturtium flowers.

nasturtium flowers, author’s photo

nasturtium flowers, author’s photo

Speaking of flowers, the next story will have pictures of our stunning lilies that are blooming. Stay tuned!