Fruits of my labor

Summer weather is officially upon us, and the rain has subsided, which has in turn led to the beginning of summer harvests. It also should mean a dirt delivery, but bad luck has struck again. Our dirt delivery guy had his dump truck break down, so it looks like it is going to be another month before my garden beds will be filled. I had to make peace with the fact that I will not have my summer garden in my beds but in buckets. This weekend I put in work to transplant all of my plants into 5 gallon buckets. What an expense of time and money. Luckily I was able to get some buckets from a family member and the rest I had to buy. It was a lot of plants because I had planted with the intention of filling all of my 40 Ft. Long beds.

I got it done though, even though I was completely exhausted. My son broke the pipe for water in the lower garden where the garlic was planted so I have not been able to water very much down there without lugging buckets and buckets of water up and down the hill, so I noticed my garlic had begun to die back. I decided I had no choice but to harvest it. I had wondered why some of my garlic was hard neck and the other was soft neck, and it appears I had planted elephant garlic as well as hard neck. I will be only planting elephant garlic in the future as it outperformed the other! Just look at the size difference!

I was able to get all of these braided and hung up to cure, and planted my corn, beans, and squash in its place in the bed.

I also realized that I overdid it with tomatoes this year. If you asked me how many tomato plants I have or how many varieties, I would not be able to tell you. Over 20 at least, indeterminate, heirloom tomato plants. I am hoping that I will have enough tomato products canned to get us to next season after we harvest. I am a bit concerned as some of the tomatoes have blossom end rot, which may have been caused by all of the rain. Unfortunately I will have to pull those tomatoes so that they do not affect the other plants and add some powdered milk in when I water tonight to see if this helps future fruit. I also purchased an irrigation system with a timer that should help all of the plants to grow quickly and be more healthy. In North Dakota we used this method and had success, however I think we misplaced our irrigation system in the move. I will keep you updated.

The peppers are doing great! I think this purple guy is coming close to harvest. I plan to cut and freeze all the peppers I harvest, so fingers crossed for a large yield. This upcoming weekend I am going to start getting fertilizer on all the plants to see if that assists with growth and fruiting.

We did get to harvest our first cucumbers. They had some yellowing on the end of them, and Bryan said it is because they need more water, so over the weekend I started drowning them twice a day, and they have begun to set a HUGE amount of fruit.

Also, look at this adorable curly cue. The personality of the garden is one of my favorite things. As the cucumbers grow they set out their vines as if they are waving "Hello, Good Morning!" before grabbing a hold of a plant, or a tomato cage, or the deck and sending off more shoots to greet you the next day.

Mr. Zucchini has his first male flower, which means we are about to be swimming in food.

And the potatoes were looking pretty sad ( I forgot to water them), but since giving them a few generous soaks in water, they have perked right back up.

I planted an entire package of Lemon Balm when the weather had started to get warm and I was in a seed planting frenzy, and it is very happy and smells amazing. Do I have any plan for this? No. I don't even know what to do with Lemon Balm. It smells like limoncello, and I just wanted to have it planted. No rhyme. No reason. My ducks are never in a row when I garden. I excitedly skip around throwing seeds everywhere and hope for the best. lol. Please let me know if you know what Lemon Balm is used for.

As always Missouri is beautiful. The golden light coming through our windows, I could not resist capturing.

Until next time.