Beautiful flowers

I'm glad I planted the mixed flower seed mix. The giant zinnias, marigolds, and cosmos are especially pretty right now. They bring the butterflies. Today a black and blue one fluttered around. 

The plot is just a mess! It's been nearly two weeks since I went out there and over three since I really worked it.  The weeds and grasses have nearly taken over, but the peas and tomatoes are fighting hard to maintain their spots. 

Today I picked two baskets of tomatoes and peas plus several ears of corn, two delicata squash and a mess of butter beans. 

And tonight, I froze a bag of corn and shelled peas for two hours. It'll be worth it this fall. 

You Can Tell It's Been Cool

The polar vortex after massive rainfall is very noticeable in the garden. The plants are lush and green. The lady peas are so thick, you can't even see the rows. But, they are missing the heat because there has been little flower production so far. The corn taste good, but looks a little weird. Instead of tassels up top, some of the plants have skinny corn cobs instead. Some of the cobs have a few tough purplish kernels. The tomatoes are coming along. I picked two shirttails full of cherry tomatoes and a couple of the smaller slicers that were starting to turn. Had to get a couple of green ones for broiled green tomatoes for dinner. We also had cornonthecob, stewed San Marzano tomatoes, broiled yellow squash and sliced cucumbers. 

What's growing

The tomatoes are looking great. One row are all from HD. The other row are the ones I grew from seed except for one or two that came up from last year. I labeled all the peat pots, but over the weeks before planting it got difficult to read them. Here are my best guess as to what is in the last three rows:

Garden last three rows

First:

Two jalepeno

Yellow pear

Mr. Stripey

San. Marzano

San Marzano

Super sweet 100 red

Golden pear

Parks whopper

Yellow sun sweet cherry

??better boy??

Big boy

Second row

4 California wonder bell pepper

Gypsy pepper

Red bell pepper

*space*

Haricot vert green beans--did not sprout

Henderson baby butter beans 

Third row

Big boy

Indigo blue cherry --died

Mortgage lifter

??sun sweet??

Big red heirloom

Mortgage lifter

Mortgage lifter 

Mortgage lifter

Unknown

Brandywine

Brandywine

Sunsugar

Last two are unknown

Frankie Baker

I met Mr. Baker again. We had forgotten each other's name so we reintroduced ourselves and he offered me some squash. His plot is behind Caroline and Greg's. His corn is almost ready to harvest (jealous)👺. 

I did take a couple of squash and zucchini and if he offers corn in a couple of weeks, I'll take that too. 

I got the sign in the ground today and brought home a couple of fists full of snow peas and a handful of green pea. 

The tomatoes look very healthy and most have multiple blossoms. Lady peas are so easy and are about 8" tall.  This week I'll be working on watering and weeding. 

A full day's work

The beautiful sun was out all day. The morning temp in the low 60's made a full day at the garden a real treat. I was there from 8:30-3:00 with a quick lunch break at Burger King. I tilled the entire plot then hand weeded the corn (again), the tomatoes, squash and most of the peas. The water was off so I couldn't soak in the fertilizer. It can keep a couple of days. 

Let the wild harvesting begin!

So hhappy to be at my HHappy Place today! Really need to get my sign out there. It has been eleven days since I've been out to SFCG because of work + all the rain. So glad to see nearly everything thriving. That of course included the grasses and weeds. However, I hand weeded the four rows of corn then got some triple 13 down on them. Also, planted the gypsy pepper, cantaloupe and honeydew plants. One good thing about the the cool, wet weather is the snow peas are putting on quite a show. Also the romaine lettuces are heading nicely, onions are thickening up and I got our first tomato--a Sun Sugar cherry yellow.   The mystery squash/pumpkin is flowering and more rogue tomato plants are popping up. 

Corn in the Ground, Ants in My Pants

Sounds like a line from a really old country music song. It is my reality today. I tilled in compost and got four 20 foot rows of corn seed planted. I also tilled around the other rows that have been planted. Caroline planted fennel and I think that area would be good for any herbs we might want to grow. 

Watered with Miracle-Gro everything that has been planted except the peas. They just got regular water. At the end sat down next to an anthill to put the wheels back on the tiller. Only that was not the sole anthill. Oops. Glad I figured that out fairly quickly. 

Now onto yard work at the house.