Blue Cap Sea Holly

Eureka! Blue Eryngium! Several years ago now we bought this blue perennial and we planted it along the fence next to the rhubarb. It's now a blue part of our garden experience every year. It has blue flowers, blue leaves and blue stems. It's a prickly plant, but not too bad if you keep your distance. It also works well for cut or dry flowers inside.

It seems like just about every insect, every species of bee, and wasp, and some moths and butterflies are highly attracted to it. They all work together pollinating. It's a very busy scene for several weeks in July.   

First Peppers!

First peppers have been picked. These are "Golden Summer Hybrid" sweet peppers...one of our favorites. They start out lime green, and are good even when picked early. Later they turn yellow and get sweeter. They're usually large, the flesh is thick, and the skin isn't tough, so they work well for stuffing recipes.

We're also beginning to harvest a few of our tomatoes and some beans.

Mmmmm tomatoes are coming! 

Hello peppers!

We have Rather Wetter Weather.

Say that 5 times fast! Yes! We finally had some good luck and have received about an inch of rain in the last few days, which gave the garden a good soaking. Rain water is a GOOD thing! Of course the weeds love it too, so I was out there "weeding" with my rototiller between the plants while the soil was still soft. Trying to do that when it's dry just leads to a big dust storm, and frustration. Our clay soil turns to concrete when dry, and belive me when I say that it is hard to till concrete!

storm clouds...nice!!!!!!!!!!!

rain drops on rock

Lady's Mantle (Alchemilla)

rain water is GOOD

More ripe

We finally had a "little rain" a few days ago. It amounted to about 1/4". The ground was wetted, but that's about it. The extreme dry continues. Our watering continues. Due to the hose, ...so far, the garden is still thriving.

Many plants are actually on the verge of "produce"! The sunflowers are awakening, and that is always a sign of mid summer here...

We've been picking summer squash, and it's still great! By the end of the season we've been known to start to tire of it and will run out of people to gift all of the extra squash to! You can only make so much zucchini bread!

Here are some of the other growing things in the garden that are on the verge of ripeness:

some onion thinnings, the first carrot, and some more squash
 

beans are in full blossom and some beans are arriving! We will be picking soon.
 

Our first carrot!

early girl tomato...just about ready.

this is a "carrot pepper"... new to us. It's supposed to be sweet.

Poblano pepper. We love them! Sometimes have a "little" heat, but the flavor is great!

The eaten and the ripening.

Three kinds: yellow summer "prolific" and yellow and green zucchini 

We picked our first summer squash earlier this week and fried it up with some super sweet vidalia (Georgia) onions. Mmmmmmm!

We also had our first cucumbers:












We have one "early girl" tomato turning pink to red...she's coming soon to a table near us!

Finally, an update on the giant pumpkin(s). We have pumpkins! Our "spare" plant has one that is almost basketball size. I usually plant two, just in case one goes "wrong". The primary plant has some smaller ones swelling up too, and will probably catch up. I'll have to do a post on the pumpkins sometime to explain all of this!

The rain dance.

We saw a rain cloud yesterday, and there were even a couple of drops on the windshield !!!!!

It is dry.

The very first entry of this blog back in May 2011 mentions that it had been raining non-stop in May, so much that we couldn't get the plants and seeds into the garden. It was the wettest May on record for Rochester. Well, after that, June was the driest in 25 years and there has been NO rain at all now since June 24. Talking weather in the blog may be boring, but rain is undeniably a part of the garden and I don't recall it ever being this dry. The ground is cracking and leaves are falling from some of the trees. Local farms are hurting. Fewer weeds though!!

Dusty... like moon walking...

Trees are stressed.

Fallen leaves.

    So, we water regularly with a timer valve, soaker hoses, quick connect fittings, and a hose system to send water to the east or west gardens. It's a manual system. I get lots of exercise switching the connections and setting the timer. It's a rain dance, but not much dancing lately! Nonetheless, the garden is still doing well. Hope our well doesn't run dry.

This is for the birds!

I've finished one of my recent projects. It's a flowing water bird bath. They seem to really love it. I learned a lot about making water features and had some fun.I may do another larger water stream/falls in the future. Making this was good practice. We watch them easily since it's located just outside our kitchen window.

Knee high and pregnant!

I'm talking about the garden! The early corn was knee high by fourth of July. We have three varieties growing: "Chorus" (67 days), "Augusta" (78 days), and "Silver Queen" (82 days). I have never timed corn to see how accurate the seed package estimates are, but I do know that early corn always does seem to come before the late. Anyhow, we have met the proverbial "knee high milestone".

Knee high "chorus" early corn. 

Corn is in the back. Two rows of peppers angle right. Summer squash far right. Giant pumpkins left of peppers.

Now about the pregnancy...tomatoes, peppers, and squash. We're going to EAT them!

Early girl tomatoes.

Sweet pepper... it starts out lime green and then turns yellow.

Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon? We have quite the bamboo and wire system going to support the tomatoes.

Summer squash and zucchini...it won't be long. They grow fast.