I picked the first couple of crowns of broccoli today. I was a couple of days late on one of them. I set the plants out on April 13th. That’s 3-1/2 months to maturity. Some of the plants don’t even have small crowns on them yet. Very strange.

The eggplants are really starting to go now. I stuck with a single variety of large purple ones this year and ensured they got plenty of water and fertilizer. Unfortunately, I didn’t record the variety or source. They are well protected from rabbits. We picked the first one about a week ago, and Edith baked the slices. She used balsamic and something else. It was very good.

It looks like we’ll have a very good harvest his year, unlike the past several.

It’s been over a month since Jared cleaned the blackberry patch out, and I finally got to putting in the posts and stringing the rope across to keep the blackberry plants somewhat in line. I did a considerable bit of trimming, also. Now I have a clear path on each side of the patch and one in the middle. We’ve been picking berries for several weeks and the yields are getting better.

It stormed last night and finally didn’t pass us by. Looks like we got about 1-3/4 inches of rain. We had about a half inch earlier this week on Wednesday. I shouldn’t need to water for a few days. The garden really needed the rain.

Tomatoes are doing well, I got a couple of Lemon Boys and a Black Krim, along with the Early Girl IIs producing prolifically, as well as the Champion IIs, which are producing larger tomatoes than the Early Girls.

I pulled the remains of the peas out a couple of days ago and sprayed the remaining Canadian Thistle with roundup. Today, I weeded the bed by hand, and I planted pole beans and lazy housewife beans and the place where the peas had been. I hope I’m not too late getting these in.

So we are now in the middle of July, and I have daily tomatoes and cucumbers, and the zucchini exploded from nothing earlier this week. What’s working and what isn’t. The rabbits damaged a few peppers, so I think I need to add a round of 2X6s on my second two beds. I think that might be enough to keep them out.

The celery root failed again. The first batch succumbed to the drought, and the second got eaten, likely by little bunnies. That bed is fenced, and I stapled the fence to the bed frame. But they likely got in under the south end. I’ll likely need to mound up dirt over the fence.

I was too late for Roma tomatoes from Goebberts and need to buy those by the beginning of June.

I didn’t get tomatillos in, and I need to prepare the ground for those in the fall.

The Early Girl II tomatoes have been producing since mid-June, and the Champion II plants are producing as well. These are both winners for early tomatoes.

The okra is not growing well, and that needs to get in earlier.

The basil in pots is doing well, and I probably need at least 3 pots and should seed every three weeks.

There is no reason to plant mustard greens.

8 romaine plants are enough. It bolts too fast to plant anymore. Parsley should be seeded early, like before May 1.

It looks like the Malabar spinach is doing very well in the pot. I’ll definitely do it that way next year.

Rain has been threatening all week, but we never got more than a trace. Finally, overnight and into Sunday, we got over 1-1/2 inches of rain that fell steadily overnight, and throughout the day, so there were no washouts.

Fortunately, I got out yesterday and weeded almost all of the garden and tied up the Roma and Bush tomatoes, the Poblano peppers, and the two German Johnson plants in the Heirloom Garden that decided to creep across the ground. Perfect timing for once.

I picked my first tomato today, along with four cherry tomatoes, and of course, I had tomato toast for breakfast.

We are really short on rain. We got almost 3/4 of an inch over the weekend, and that helped, but I will need to continue to water. I Fertilized everything about a week ago.

I picked peas over the weekend. They were good, but way fewer than last year. Germination was poor this year, and I had lots of gaps along the trellis, likely because of the lack of rain and my not getting enough water on them early on.

We’ve picked a bunch of lettuce, and I’ve given three or four heads away. It is starting to bolt, so we are probably near the end. I might replace it with arugula.

Jared came yesterday and spent about three hours cleaning out the blackberry patch removing buckthorn, maples, grapevines, and nightshade. He pulled out an amazing amount of stuff. I cut up about 1/3 of it and got it into the garden waste bin, and stacked the rest over the firepit so that RT could mow, I am hoping this greatly increases the harvest. It should make it easier for Annabelle to pick some berries.

First cucumber today, Summer Dance from Countryside, and another round of romaine. This is the first cutting of the Red Romaine.

Yesterday, t I went to Goebbert’s and got a couple of BOGO flats of flowers that I’ll plant around the mint garden to get some color in the yard. I bought their last 8 Roma tomato plants and bought 7 bush tomatoes to fill out that space. I bought more curly parsley, 3 Gypsy peppers to replace the ones the rabbits chomped on and some Thai Basil.

I went out around 10:00 and planted parsley, 6 replacement peppers, 15 tomato plants, 2 hills of Cocozelle Zucchini seeds, and a hill of patty pan squash seeds. I stood out in the rain and watered my new plantings, lacking the faith that we would get a useful amount of rain. Three of the supposed Roma tomatoes turned out to be Early Girls, which I wasn’t happy about.