Garden Time

This spring a friend and I decided to put in a vegetable garden on her place in the country. 

This has worked out well for both of us, being single women of a certain age we have been able to depend on each other to care for the garden during the summer. 

At this time my friend is away on vacation so I''m sending her this garden update.  

Dear Juds, Since you been away the garden has done quite well, although there have been a few discouraging developments with the gopher.    

As soon as you left he took care of the remaining beets and when I last visited the garden our number one gourmet cipollini onions growing next to the green beans have disappeared completely. 

I've actually taken to flooding his tunnels just for fun, although I know I'm making little impact on his life.  He's probably enjoying the water in this hot weather. 

For now we're going to have a bumper chop with the green beans on the purple trellis- the tomatoes - of course the zucchini - unbelievably the eggplant - the purple cabbage is gorgeous, and the sunflowers are the sentinels of the garden - pleasingly garish.  I guess I got carried away with those seeds.  The chard is still with us and the kale that you planted is coming on nicely. And we still have savoy cabbage! I tried to make sauerkraut and I think it worked!

The tomatoes are coming on like gang busters and I expect to get lots of ripe ones by the end of the week. In fact, one of the heirlooms (Brandywine) ripened and yes I eat it - it was the most delicious tomato I've eaten in a long time (childhood comes to mind)

I cleaned up the spinach, arugula, and lettuce that was bolting and was hoping to put in another crop of lettuce. Now that it's so hot I'll wait awhile.  Hopefully I can do it and there would be a nice little crop when you return.

The squash growing back of the greenhouse are struggling (the soil is too thin) but I'm determined that we will have a crop and haven't given up on they - yet!  

Betty is always hanging around the house and follows me out to the garden loyally.  She's a sweetie.  The old yellow cat is always stealing her food, along with the Blue Jay.

Today, she didn't come out to greet me right away.  I was a little concerned until I found her under the house where it's cool.

Given your absence, she's probably wondering what's going on in her world!  

Say good-bye Betty.  

See you soon.

Evelyn

REMEMBER:  Buy Local When You Can!