catching up

We have been absent from the the blog for a couple of weeks, but things don't stop in the garden.  Here are some pictures from past two weeks...

baby lima bean

yarrow

building the shed

softneck garlics

first tomato! (unfortunately overripe when we found it)

harvest - 'tis the season of summer fruits

saturn peaches, blackberries, ume plums, garlic chives

The peaches started ripping last week.  This signals the start of summer even though the weather doesn't feel like it at all.  The temperature has been a lot cooler than usual and gardening-perfect.  We are trying to enjoy the weather before those 90-some or 100-some degree hot summer days come.

Back to my basket of goodies.  These tree-ripened peaches are mouth-wateringly delicious.  They have a light sweet scent and the skin peels right off.  They are very juicy and not overly sweet.  Just the right sweetness.  Just peachy.

We also harvested a couple of our first blackberries.  We should be getting loads of them in a few weeks.  The two apricot-looking things are ume plums.  They are used to make Japanese pickled plums (umeboshi) when the fruits are still green and sour.  The ripe fruits are rather tasteless.  The tree only bore about 5 fruits this year.  Maybe we'll try making some umeboshi if there's ever a good amount of harvest.

The cooler-than-usual temperature also means happy greens.  In this box there are - tung ho (edible/garland chrysanthemum), curled Indian mustard, a-choy lettuce, spinach, mizuna, summerfest komatsuna... oh ya, and our first cucumber!

Our garlics are pathetic this year.  We didn't notice that our irrigation system wasn't working right for a little while. Their growth is stunted and the leaves are burnt.  For now, they are hanging on.  Earlier during the week, I harvested our garlic scapes.  I was excited to see the garlics producing scapes since I had never grown hardnecks before.  The scapes are a little tougher than I would like (probably because of the lack of water) but still good.

baby preying mantis

When I was working in the garden, this little guy came along and wanted to play.  I asked it to pose for a few pictures, then it left to get some aphids for dinner.

I saw this caterpillar on my pumpkin plant.  Good bug or bad bug?

flowers in the garden

Volunteers

Top to bottom: California poppy, borage, nasturtium, mystery flower

Except the last one, I sowed the seeds of these flowers in the past.  Now they self-seed themselves and come back every year.  I don't know what the mystery flower is.  It's a nice velvety red.

Blossoms of edibles

Top to bottom:  snap pea, strawberry, blueberry, blackberry