Summer...

Such long time between the posts! The summer has been very hot and my garden is not doing as well as I wish it would. I missed the peak of green bean harvest because I was on a trip for two weeks. Squirrels are picking my tomatoes. Beets did not grow much. Seedlings from the tomatoes that I started from seed grew very lush, but did not bear a single fruit. Even hot peppers are not producing as much as last year. I've done a lot of weeding, though. And a few other things have been doing well. Like my parsley... it's abundant.

There have been small harvests...

 and some native flowers are doing great even in this heat...

 as well as this surprise appearance... not sure what this flower is and when had I purchased it.

 I get a few cucumbers every week...

and three beans from a single pod that survived rabbit plague last year (and that were seeded in a special pot and kept in front of the house) produced 85 beans that I will plant next spring.

Paddle Cactus

The cactus we inherited with our house is blooming now.

Each bloom lasts only one day. What a show!

And the radish winner is...

Not that there ever was a contest. But I'm glad that this year I tried two varieties of radishes instead of usual one. Cherry Belle variety that looked so good in a picture on the seed packet grew slow, then quickly went to seed with relatively small number of edible radishes in between.

This French Breakfast radish featured below on the other hand is still going strong despite heat we've been having. It also tastes milder and grows larger. Come next spring, I'll be looking for this seed again.

Strawberries

This is this year's largest strawberry harvest. They are cute and picked right from the bed, still a bit warm from the sun.

I have about a dozen strawberry plants and they produce several handfuls of berries over a course of few weeks. It's more than other years when deer and rabbits ate strawberry leaves and fruit. This spring I put a small chicken wire fence around them and it has helped.

Still, I think this is the last spring for strawberries in my garden. As much as I like the idea of growing my own berries, none of the plants I have bear fruit that is sweet and they all are small. Perhaps I should investigate other retailers and try a new variety. But with the room for my garden being so limited, this might be one plant that I will give up in the future.

Bad Egg

I found this intact egg in my garden yesterday; it's probably a bad one cleared from a nest.

It's smaller than robin's egg, and its turquoise color is deeper, darker. I could not find on the web who it belongs to; will update this post if I do.

Spring Bouquet

Peonies have spread a lot this past year in my garden and this spring there are many blooms. It's such a lush flower.

Last Sunday I made three bouquets with peonies, climbing rose, clematis, dianthus, lavender, catmint, bachelor's buttons, Siberian iris and lamb's ear: one for us and two for my son's Sunday school teachers.

First Salad

Earlier this week I made the first salad with ingredients from my garden: radishes, baby lettuce, dill and shallot leaves. The later is basically green onions, but without white part; just pick a few from the plant, not all.

 Chop it all up, add some salt and sour cream. Now that's the taste of spring.