the figs are ready

We started harvesting figs last week.  They are ripening rather quickly.  We are harvesting a plastic shopping bag full about every other day.  There are 3 or 4 fig trees in the property, but only 1 of them is in the garden.  The rest of them are in the little planting area by the driveways.  I didn't plant them, so I don't know what variety they are.  I just call them the "green kind" (as opposed to the kind with purple skin).

This is the fig tree in the garden.  It's at the center of the garden, so it receives plenty of sunlight.  Other than watering it a few times a year, we really don't pay much attention to it.

I thought this one looked like the Piranha Plant from Super Mario Brothers.  I felt like it was coming to get me, so of course I had to eat it first.

Figs are a relatively new fruit to me.  I didn't grow up eating them.  In fact, I had never seen one (dried or fresh) before I moved to California.  I have to admit they are not on the list of summer fruits/vegetables that I look forward to.  I just kind of forget about them... until I bite into a perfectly ripe one.  Every year they remind me of how delicious they are all over again, sweet like honey with crunchy little seeds.

golden corn tassels

I snapped the above pictures late in the evening last Saturday.  These corn tassels were especially visible in the almost dark garden.  The golden color looked even brighter against the dark green bean jungle.

I took the picture of the corn ears the next day when the lighting was better.  I can't wait for them to be ready.  I keep looking at sweet corns when we go to the supermarkets or the farmer's markets, but I refuse to buy any (ok, I basically refuse to buy any vegetables).  I want my corns!

harvest

The garden continues to bless us with good varieties of summer veggies.  There are something new ripening every week.  I haven't bought any produce in a couple of months.  I feel like I'm getting as good of a selection from my garden, if not better, as it is from a supermarket.  Not to mention they taste better and have less mileages and storage life.

The huge green tomatoes above are Aunt Ruby's German Green, and they are my new favorite green tomato.  They are so pretty when they are ripe, light green with a tint of yellow and pink blush.  We refrigerate them and cut them into slices to snack on.  They are juicy, sweet, and refreshing.  The perfect snack on a hot summer day.  The  catalog describe their flavor as spicy.  I think they are rather mild but very flavorful and delicious.

My previous favorite green tomato was Green Zebra.  Unfortunately, the two Green Zebra plants I started from seeds turned out to be something else (Black Krim, I think).  I wish I had some Green Zebras to do a side-by-side taste test.

These are pictures of some of the harvest from last week.  In the pictures are - Black Krim tomatoes, Beefsteak tomatoes, Aunt Ruby's German Green tomatoes, Sun Gold cherry tomatoes, luffa gourd (Chinese okra), Big Bertha pepper, Better Belle pepper, Sweet Banana pepper, Birdseye chili peppers, Japanese eggplants, patty pans, cucumber, Delica pumpkin, Yard Long beans, Summerfest Komatsuna, purple mustard, green onions, garlic chives, and edible amaranth leaves.

weekend harvest - seeds

We don't have too many pictures of veggies to show off this week.  We had a couple groups of friends who came to visit the garden last week.  We had fun walking around the garden.  Everyone tried their hands in harvesting veggies and took home the harvests.  And, of course I forgot to take pictures of those harvests.

 I did take pictures of the harvest for Saturday night dinner.  The cucumbers are slowing down.  The tomatoes are ripping faster than we are picking.  On Saturday and Sunday, we picked tomatoes both in the mornings and the afternoons.

This big fat carrot was one of the only two seeds that came up from my failed seed sowing in March.  The other one I picked too early so there wasn't much of a carrot.  Then I kept forgetting to pick this one.  I chopped this one up and cooked it in soup.  It was nice and sweet.  This variety is Oxheart.  They grow very short and fat, so they are good for heavy clay soils.  We don't have heavy clay soils.  I just like to grow different varieties for fun.

Although we don't have too many edibles to show off this week, we do have some non-edible harvest to share.

Here are some stargazer lilies we harvested for cut flowers.

I let some chive flowers go to seed so I can plant more next year, although I think there will be some volunteers next year.  There were a lot seeds dropped to the ground.  The seeds were kind of a pain to collect.  It was hard to separate the dried up mini flowers from the seeds.

I have a monster celery plant going to seed.  It's been there since last year.  I harvested some of the seeds last Sunday.  I can't wait for the rest of the seeds to dry up, so I can dig up the plant and grow something else there.

I had a much easier time collecting these seeds.  I just used a fine sift to separate the debris from the seeds.  I heard celery seeds can be used as seasoning for cooking.  I'm going to give it a try.  I guess you could count these as part of the edible harvest.

not so much garden update...

just a few random photos I took in the garden yesterday.

The stargazer lilies are blooming in the garden!  It looks like the first bloom opened a few days ago.  I can't believe I missed it.  I had been waiting for it for a couple of weeks.  I guess I was too wrapped up in garden work over the weekend and forgot to smell the flowers. ;)

These are our hybrid sweet corns.  The variety is Peaches & Cream.  We planted our corns late this year.  The tassels just started to appear.

We are also growing some old-fashoned non-hybrid sweet corns for the first time.  They are said to be not as sweet as the sugar-enhanced hybrid types but have a "true corn flavor".  I don't know what that means, so I'm anxious to find out.  This variety is Whipples Yellow.  We sowed them about 4 weeks after Peaches & Cream to ensure the two varieties will not cross.  You don't have to space the sowing dates so far apart (I believe 2 - 3 weeks is sufficient).  We just didn't get to it sooner.

This is one of our edamame beds.  We already pulled a couple of plants from this bed.  The beans were sweet, nutty, and delicious.  The edamame plants in the other bed didn't do so well.  We pulled most of them on Sunday.  They were much shorter, the leaves were full of bug bites and not as green, and there were very few beans on each plant.  In one word, pathetic.  It's probably because the other bed doesn't get as much sun.  So note to self,  plant edamame in beds that get most sunlight.

I started these echinaceas from seeds last year and planted them at the part of the garden where I completely ignored them.  They still came back for me this year.

Growing on the southeast corner of our finely-built arbor/trellis with duct tapes (yes, we have no experience in carpentry and we are working on it) are the edible luffa gourds (Chinese okra).  They had a pretty slow start this year.  Now that the weather has warmed up, they are loving the heat.  And finally, I spotted our first fruit of the season.

This carpenter bee was following me around the garden when I was taking pictures.  He finally stopped on the luffa gourd flower and posed for me.

The Fuyu persimmons are getting bigger. They will be the perfect fall color for the Thanksgiving dinner table.

Saving the best for last.  A garden tour is not complete without something to nibble on.

Happy gardening!