The heat of summer is definitely here!!! The tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, and tomatillo are loving it, while the beans and cucumbers are tolerating it and wishing that I'd water them just a bit more frequently...sigh...I'm just wishing it would rain a bit more frequently...that would make everyone happier!
We've started eating our sunsugar cherry tomatoes and they are mouthwateringly delicious! And many of our other tomato plants are starting to have ripening fruit on them as well! We have a couple beefsteak and main crop tomato plants that have huge tomatoes on them! I'm sooooooo excited to slice into those babies and put them on a BLT or just eat them on their own with a little salt. Yum.
Remember in my last garden update I said I was a bit worried that my tomatillo needed a mate in order to produce fruit....well, thankfully, that doesn't seem to be the case! It's branches (which are huge!) are now filling with little tomatillo pods that will hopefully hold little tomatillos inside of them very soon! Hooray!!
We have an eggplant, folks! I'm so very excited to pick it...It may only last out there for another day or two. I've also heard that they are better when they are on the younger side (which is good, since I'm still developing a love for eating eggplant...but they are so pretty and fun, aren't they?!?!)
The peppers are doing well! I just picked a pint of jalapeños yesterday to ferment with a bit of garlic (which, I've found, is a great way for us to preserve their sporadic bounty!) Dan has also been enjoying them fresh with his breakfast eggs. We should have a green pepper or two in the next week and the sweet little lunch box peppers are looking good--now they just have to start turning into their beautiful shades of yellow, orange, and red!
The bush beans have slowed with the heat, but the pole beans are beginning to flower and fill out! Within a week or two I think they'll start to produce!! August...every thing is always ready in August, isn't it?!
One thing that I was able to harvest from the garden this week was our first crop of garlic! It was a very small crop, just 5 heads, but they look healthy and smell lovely! They are now curing in the garage for a bit. I think this fall I may have to find many more little corners of the garden to tuck garlic bulbs into. They are so easy to grow!!!
Another thing in the garden that I've been very pleased with has been the creeping thyme that grows between our stepping stones. I planted wooly thyme last year, but it didn't seem to do much, but this year it has taken off! It's now beginning to fill the spaces between the stepping stones! This year I added a bit of lemon thyme to the mix and it is also doing really well! I think this fall I'll be able to divide some of it and hopefully by next summer it will start to really fill out the walkway---making a lush green carpet without weeds!!! Hooray!!!
How about you?? How does your garden grow??