Around the garden

The garden June 25th

Things are really growing now. We're having warm weather and still getting rain on a regular basis. I probably could have five rain barrels full by now. By the way, I love having a rain barrel. I'm already realizing that I need one out front, close to my flower beds.

At this point, I know I've learned at least one thing. When the plan says your space is big enough for four potato plants, don't plant six. In my defense, I didn't expect all six to grow. They all did, however, and they are still growing. They look more like bushes than vegetable plants. The fact that they're falling over doesn't help.

I've got a couple cherry tomatoes ripening.

I'm very excited for tomatoes. Before long, I'll have more than I can handle, but I can usually find someone to take the extras. Last year, I learned that the little ones work as well frozen as the big ones. Pop a few of them in some homemade macaroni and cheese in the middle of winter...yum.

I thinned a few green beans today, and I felt bad about it. One of the two cucumbers I planted is doing well. The other is a no-show.

These are bush cucumbers and not good for pickles. We can't eat as many cucumbers as two plants will give us at once, so I might wait a week or so before planting another one.

Despite the grackles' best efforts, I've got some sunflowers growing. I took the fence off completely today.

Sorry for the weird angle. Most of the flowers in the cinder blocks are doing well, too. Look at this snapdragon:

The strange thing is, the four others I planted look like this:

They're right next to each other. You can also see in the above photo that a volunteer tomato found its way into this bed. I have no idea where it came from.

I'm planning to harvest and pickle the beets this weekend. I love pickled beets, so I hope they work out.

Todays' birds: blue jay, grackle, robin, sparrow. I'm out of bird food and hoping the sparrows and grackles will find a new buffet.