oh fay, what wonderful rain you brought us

we had little rain over the last 3 weeks, that is until fay arrived today.  a sprinkle or two but mostly, nothing.  even so, the perilla, on the left and the lemon grass, on the right did well.  if you have ever eaten at a korean restaurant and had the barbeque cooked at the table, perilla is often served as a whole leaf used as a wrap for the meats and little dishes that come with it.  we found the seeds in one of our favorite stores, K&S World Market and planted a few in the garden.  it makes frequent appearances on our table, darry loves to make little lettuce wraps.

the last time we went down to gulf shores, alabama, we stopped in a flea market and found this little fig tree.  it hasn't grown much and we think it needed more sun.   when our beautiful rosemary bush died, we relocated the fig to it's spot since it gets much more sun here.  maybe we will get some figs next year.

when our wonderful neighbor moved out and left Lubie behind, she also left Patches.  they are staying in our yard until we can make arrangements for them.  they are the sweetest cats and they really are attached to each other, they frequently rub their heads together.

hummers in the garden

we have a small group of ruby throated hummingbirds that visit the feeders in our gardens.

if we sit very quietly on the bench near the asparagus bed, they will fly around us and stop for a quick drink.  they love to chase each other and will occasionally stop to check us out too.  

dog days of summer

it's mid august and it's hot, big surprise in the south.  the only thing in the garden that is thriving despite the heat and lack of rain is the vining okra.  we have never grown it before and were given some seeds this spring and we decided to try it and see what would happen.  
our little red pepper plant has been very successful as this photo shows.  the peppers were large and sweet and we enjoyed them!
our new favorite tomato, ananas noire.  believe it or not, this is actually a ripe tomato. they are also a bit green inside but are the sweetest tomatoes we have ever eaten.  
some of the old german tomatoes.  they are late season and we have yet to try them.
zucchini blossoms are always so pretty, and the zucchini is one of my favorite vegetables to cook on the grill.

this week in the garden

the intense heat of last week combined with a lack of rain has made this a slow week in the garden.  a lot of the plants shut down and began to die off.  we are seeing a slowdown with the tomatoes and the cucumbers.  the peppers and eggplants are enjoying the heat.  we will most likely begin to remove plants, this week we took out some of the beans.

this hummingbird feeder, located between the herb garden and the peonies, is a busy spot.  we have watched several hummingbirds come to drink from it.

the cardinal climbers in the front lasagna bed have taken off.  the heat does not seem to affect them at all.

the peonies are dropping seeds now.  some of last year's  seeds actually sprouted.

our new friend Lubie likes to guard the herb bed.  either that or she is stalking hummingbirds.  can you believe a neighbor moved out and left two cats behind?  it makes me so mad!  hopefully we can find her a permanent home before winter.

today's pick

with a quick trip through the garden this morning and i have a basket full of tomatoes, peppers and cucumbers.  sounds like a good salad to me, just need to make a stop in the herb garden and maybe the grocery store for some cheese and bread.  what more could any one person possibly need?  starting on the left are banana peppers and going clockwise, two ananas noire, a pile of big beef, lemon cucumbers, 4 cherokee purple, chocolate cherries and gold nugget and finally, a small mortgage lifter that needs to ripen a little more.

on this plate, a close up of mortgage lifter-the two at the top, going clock wise, a cut cherokee purple which is also in the center,

tiny bonito ojo, and finally, big beef cut and whole.  I apologize for the lousy colors in the photos, i really need to get a better camera.

in this photo, my new favorite tomato, ananas noire.  they are a little prone to cracking but that does not stop me from eating them.  they are so sweet that they can be eaten like fruit!  not a very pretty tomato color wise.  it is easy to see why they are called noire-black.  they are green inside when ripe.

next year, i will definitely plant the chocolate cherry again, they have great flavor and a good yield.  the gold nugget, on the right is also a good little tomato but the yield is not as high.  if i do those again next year, i may plant two.

these banana peppers are sweet and the little bush is producing a lot of peppers.  i would love to try stuffing some, a chile rellenos dish would be great.  next year i may plant two so that i can make that dish.  if they are left on the plant long enough, they turn red.  maybe we will plant some hot ones too!

the last two years, cucumbers have been a challenge.  during last years drought, we watched our vines shrivel up and the few cucumbers we picked were bitter.

in the fall we tried again with a third variety only to have the same results.  we assumed it was both the drought and a poor choice of seed variety.  this year  we went with store bought plants and a few seeds for the lemon cucumbers that were a free gift with our order to rareseeds.com.

those little lemon cucumbers are the best we have ever grown.  although we have had good results with store bought cuke plants in years past, this years are often more bitter than sweet and they look a lot like the asian cukes we grew from seed last fall.  from now on, it's lemon cukes for us!

points of interest

last year, i saved many of the annuals that i had in pots to overwinter them in the house.  this spring i put them outside, some went into beds and others went into pots.  these are some of the purple queen plants from last years flower box.  they did not like the conditions in the house, not enough light for them and they turned green.  after a short period on the front porch in a new pot, they were once again a nice shade of purple.

when we started our new lasagna bed out front, we transplanted

 cardinal climber  seedlings to cover the metal bed frame.  as 

you can see, they are very hardy and are doingwell.  they do not

 need much encouragement and will probably cover up the frame 

quickly. 

one of our other lasagna beds, pictured here is also filling in nicely.  the coleus plants have grown substantially and are already in need of a trim.  all over the yard, in all of the beds and pots are little pieces of garden art.  in this bed is a mushroom and in the pot is a tiny gnome.  the gnome collection is growing and we are always in search of gnomes in need of a garden home.  keep in mind, like the photo to the left says, all of our gnomes live free of garden oppression.  they are never expected to work the gardens, however, we won't stop them if they choose to do so on their own...

in the garden this week...

the melons are getting big!  this is one of the watermelons, we ran the vines outside the garden fence and are letting them takeover this section of the lawn.

we also have some green flesh melons.  these are also taking over a section of the lawn.  we are waiting very patiently for them to mature so we can eat them!

every time we have planted peppers, we have planted too many.  we find ourselves with more than we can eat.  this year we only planted 3, two bell peppers and one sweet banana pepper.  this is the red bell pepper plant and as you can see, the peppers are just beginning to show some color.  now that the weather is really hot, they will take off, peppers love hot weather.

this is one of our heirloom tomatoes, cherokee purple.  they are a dark tomato, almost a brown color.  we are eager to taste them.

one of the things we try to do in the garden is to provide beneficial plants for the various critters that may be in the garden.  a few years back, we planted bronze fennel for the swallowtails and this year the plant is huge.  all we need now are the swallowtail caterpillars.

what's happening

our garden features several unusual varieties of vegetable such as vining okra and loofah.  we also have an artichoke, various colors of eggplants and tomatoes and two of my favorites are the lemon cucumber (on the left) and cardoon (on the right).  the lemon cucumbers are small and about the size of a lemon with a pale yellow rind, hence the name.  they also have the best cucumber flavor of any we have ever grown.  the cardoon was chosen specifically for it's display, large artichoke-like flowers that are surprisingly fragrant, and it's height.

along the front walk of the house, we added two lasagna beds as you may recall from earlier posts.  in between the beds was a scraggly collection of hostas.  we have decided to officially turn this space into a hosta garden.  we moved around some existing hostas and added some chocolate chip ajuga, also called bugleweed, and in the future we will add more so keep checking back for more updates.

some of the most successful plants in the garden are the cannas.  last year was the first year we had them in the garden.  we were given some rhizomes by chris, one of the cousins in Kentucky, when we visited them during the holiday season of 2006.  darry placed the cannas in the ground in the spring of 2007 and we watched them take off last summer  in spite of the drought.  last fall, darry cut the amount in this bed by removing half of them and placing them in an empty space by the end of the driveway and in another bed out front.  they have once again doubled in this bed, if not tripled and are well over 6 feet tall.  we will be removing almost all of them in this bed come the first frost, they are simply too big and invasive for all of the other plants here.  as a result, we will have rhizomes to share!

more info on cannas

welcome visitors

spending time outside means encountering critters.  in the garden, that means encountering nasty critters.  from mosquitoes to wasps to ants that bite, i run into them all. 

this is a photo of a leaf footed bug, they don't bite people but they are big and ugly and they fly.

they are sap suckers, meaning that they pierce the fruit and suck out the juice doing damage that causes the fruit to be stunted.

when i am outside in the garden, i love to listen to the birds.  often, i can identify the frequent visitors when i hear them.  these black eyed susans are a favorite of the goldfinches.  so far, when i have been able to hear them and have attempted to photograph them, they have flown away.  any kind of movement near them will scare them off.  they spend time up in the trees and they are very vocal.  i have also encountered bluebirds in the yard, a male specifically, but no opportunity to photograph him has occurred yet.

tomatoes have begun to ripen!  if you came to dinner this past weekend, you could have tasted this tomato salad.  it has chocolate cherry, gold nugget and bonito ojo tomatoes in it.  i also added some banana peppers and lime basil from the garden and tossed it with balsamic vinegar and olive oil.

our first crop green and yellow beans are finishing up, it will be time to pull them out soon.  in this salad, i blanched the beans, added chick peas and kidney beans as well as onions and banana peppers and tossed it with vinaigrette.

being in the south, you become accustomed to having a bowl of cucumber salad on the table.  we had a bunch of cukes to use so i sliced them up, added more banana peppers (pepper plants tend to produce lots of peppers when it is hot, and it is hot here!) and dill from the garden and i tossed it with some cider vinegar and a little sugar.  i could easily live on this salad!

more to see in the veggie patch...

this year we planted two kinds of melons, these are rocky ford and they are a green flesh melon.

for the first time, we planted a brown tomato and these are chocolate cherries.

above left is casper, a white eggplant and on the right are sweet banana peppers.

the little peach tree is trying hard to stay upright but the dozen or so peaches on it are bending it over.  if it ever gets large, the branches will be on the ground!