Mid-August Garden Report

I should have gotten to a garden update LONG before now, but what can I say? It's been a crazy busy summer. On this very hot (by Portland standards) afternoon I finally got out into the bright 90 degree sun to take some photos- you can see from the pictures how bright it is outside these days! It's the hottest summer weather we've had so far this year; the weather has been unreal for the last five weeks, no rain at all and days between 75 and 85 degrees, so pleasant and so great for our garden, planted just as the warm weather started! In no particular order, here is what our garden looks like today:

(Click on Photos to Enlarge)

 

 Two peppers on the left, with Tarragon at the back of the bed. Then a stripe of arugula, marigolds, and strawberries (I'm hoping they're the double-bearing kind and will give us another round of fruit in September. We'll see.

 Broccoli! I bought six organic broccoli starts, and they are all doing great, but have grown taller than I've ever seen a broccoli plant!

 Mint, three red cabbages, marigolds, cosmos, chives, and a winter White Hubbard squash at the right.

 Golden California Wonder peppers.

 Four-foot tall cosmos, broccoli, and our two cucumber plants. Silverbeet is hiding behind the broc, and we've already eaten the small patch of bok choy that was hidden in the midst of it all.

 All six cabbages have done well, but this one took a major hit from the Cabbage White caterpillars. For about two weeks in July, I did a daily search-and-destroy mission on the caterpillars, and they seem to have left off by now.

 (Not so) Early Girl tomatoes, about to ripen!

 We've been eating Hungarian Hot Banana peppers for the last couple of weeks.

 The Jalapenos are doing extremely well for themselves! It's salsa season!

 Our single garden failure so far this year was another winter squash that was planted here, that got powdery mildew. I couldn't revive it, so pulled it out, and a few days ago I planted two rows of leeks here, for a fall crop. We're planning to grow garlic in this bed, come October.

 Our cukes are going absolutely bananas- I can't believe how many blossoms are on each plant! These lemon cucumbers are our favorites, and we'll have plenty this year.

 A lovely lettuce mix from Johnny's.

 One of the umpteen pickling cucumbers we have harvested so far.

 Another two tomatoes at the back of the house.

 Strangely, our first ripe tomato is on one of the slightly stunted, leggy plants we got from a coworker of Matt's.

 More super-tall broccolis and my scarlet runner beans, which make me constantly happy, on the fence right outside the living room windows with their bright scarlet blossoms and their vines that grow a good four or five inches every day!

 A small patch of Bright Lights chard, although I still prefer to call it by it's Commonwealth name, Silverbeet (so much prettier!). I'll probably blanch and freeze most of it for eating this winter.

 My favorite lettuce, Spotted Trout Back.

 A great August combination: tomatoes and roses.

The bare patch at the left is where we grew our radishes, which we finished off about two weeks ago. I just planted that area in spinach to continue with our rotational growing of salad greens. 

With this stellar summer weather and consistent sunshine, we've kept endlessly busy with outdoors work, to the point that I am almost longing for a couple rainy days, so that we have to stay inside and do all the indoor projects that have gone to the back burner over the last month or so. Also, it would be nice to have a day cool enough to spend a comfortable day upstairs in the garret (which has recently been more of a sauna) working on the long list of sewing projects I have in store. Also it would be nice to be able to bake bread without having to time it in the evenings so that the yard is a good shady place for us to retreat to when the kitchen heats up! Still, I shouldn't complain; we are truly getting our endless summer!