my grandson's cousin enjoys some baby carrots

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I made an obvious decision to forgo writing about and photographing my garden so far this year. It was a nice break that actually allowed me to enjoy getting my patch of green off and running without the encumbrances of camera and computer. Gardening is a messy business and I recall last year finding sudden inspiration while having muck up to my elbows. Dashing to the camera or computer in such a state required significant clean up which somewhat interrupted the flow of both the gardening AND the inspiration. This year when inspiration came I simply said, “Eh…” and returned to pulling weeds in the rain.

A friend on Facebook asked me “What do you have in your garden?” That’s my reason for returning to this.

I am experimenting with new varieties of mostly heirloom vegetables. This year I have purchased nearly all my seeds from Seed Savers Exchange, an organization dedicated to preserving and sharing the heirloom seeds of our garden heritage. With any luck this year’s garden will contain:

• Kentucky Wonder Pole Beans from SSE – This is a wonderful old standby that I grew in my first garden in 1973. It’s the only bean I’ve ever grown. For next year I have my eyes on some Rattlesnake Snap beans. I don’t think I can resist “dark green pods that are streaked with purple – very fine flavor.” I like the name too.

• Wisconsin Lakes Pepper from SSE – I’ve always grown California Wonder peppers but wanted an heirloom variety with seeds I can save for next year.

• Jalapeño Peppers from Burpee – just one plant in a bucket from last year’s left over seeds

• Summer Crookneck Squash from SSE – I love the nutty flavor.

• Burpee’s Fordhook Zuccini – I used some leftover seeds from last year.

• Sweet Dumpling Winter Squash – I got these seeds from my son who grew them in Brooklyn.

• Purple Top White Globe Turnip from SSE – I’ll plant a fall crop of these too.

• Scarlet Nantes Carrot from SSE – I’ve finally discovered that the secret to growing carrots is deeply-tilled ground.

• Cherry Roma Tomato from SSE – These are replacing my Sweet 100 cherry tomatoes from the last two years. We’ll see…

• Red Brandywine Tomato from SSE – These are replacing my Better Boy Hybrids from Burpee. Those were pretty good but I want to save my seeds for next year and I can’t do that with hybrids.

• Brandywine (Sudduth’s Strain) Tomato from SSE -another experiment in flavor and seed saving

• Calabrese Broccoli from SSE - I was looking for larger heads this year which I didn’t get from the DeCicco variety I grew last year.

• Giant Noble Spinach from American Seed - These are left-over seeds from last year. My twenty-month old grandson likes this!

• Lettuce a variety of nine lettuces including a Gourmet Blend from Burpee, Black-Seeded Simpson, Burpee Bibb, and Roman Emperor (romaine)

• Mary Washington and Jersey Giant Asparagus from crowns I purchased at Home Depot

Please feel free to leave comments, questions, useful information or idle chat below. Maybe you can tell me what’s in your garden. There is more to come. I promise.

And thanks for asking, Mark.

broccoli leaf

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Once again I am struck by the aesthetic side of decomposition. This time I took the broccoli leaf into the studio to photograph it. It was a little late in the evening and pretty dark for photography outside.

This is the same type of leaf that in June I was so taken by its waterproof quality. It now looks very different. No longer waterproof, it has taken a distinctly autumn-ish color. It looks worn and ragged.

As my garden ages it changes in so many ways. Leaves like this broccoli leaf become battle scarred. Tomato plants wither from the inside as they seem to yield their energy to the fruits as they ripen. The same fate falls to Noah’s pumpkin plants. They look horrible – just dying – again, in sacrifice to the beautiful pumpkins they produce.

Only the pepper plants continue to look as virile as their fruits.

This is the period of the greatest harvest. It comes at a price the plant itself pays. We enjoy the harvest but I also watch as the plants begin to succumb to their efforts.

unripe tomatoes

The All Star Game this week has put me in a mood to evaluate how things are going in the garden. Like the Cubs, there are both good and bad things to report.

The photos below tell mostly of the good things going on. The first peppers, both bell and jalapeño, emerged from their flowers today. Zucchini and broccoli are producing well. Noah is seeing the beginnings of what are supposed to become 25-pound pumpkins. Turnips continue to be available to pull as needed. Tomatoes are green, growing and prolific.

broccoli

black raspberries

Actually there are very few problems to report. A couple of my zucchini plants are wilting. I suspect either the Squash bug or the Squash vine borer is the culprit. I’ve seen both in the garden. Although there are Japanese beetles in massive numbers, they are not as fond of my garden without green beans this year. They are preferring the grape plants.

wilted zucchini plant

very small pumpkin

zucchini

first jalapeño pepper

small bell pepper

In evaluating this blog itself, it seems that a more regular posting would be good. This week I got rather involved with photographing insects and neglected my posts. (Well, I also had some work to do.) I will have some things to say – and show – concerning creepy crawlies in a future post.

turnip

very small pear on a nearly-dead pear tree

And finally, inspired by Jesse’s “bug’s eye view” of his pumpkin plant, I’ve included below a similar view of Noah’s pumpkin plant that long ago escaped it’s boundaries. The photo shows the point of escape.

bug's-eye view of Noah's pumpkin plants

broccoli

water beads on broccoli

I’ve mentioned before that rain causes some visual transformations in the garden. This has caused me to discover an amazing fact about the broccoli plant. It is completely waterproof. Water beads up on the large leaves giving the illusion of a garden of mercury.

Mercury?

What is now known to be a hazardous element was years ago a fascinating childhood toy. A broken thermometer in our house was the beginning of an adventure for my brother and me. Watching the silvery metal bead in my hand – then crushing it into miniscule pieces only to have it reform into a single bead – was a miracle.

If you have broccoli in your garden you may want to run out there this week (there’s going to be a lot of rain in the Chicago area) and you may experience a little of that childhood miracle without the hazard.

The greenhouse is not the only neglected part of my gardening life. Jesse pointed out that I have not been attending to this blog. Well, he’s right. I’ve been distracted by work, creating a Facebook presence for my photo business, and …well …gardening.

All the spring rains have made everything grow like mad. We have eaten most of the lettuce, all of the spinach (more on that later) and radishes, and a good bunch of turnips last night.

tasty turnips

Also doing very well are

• tomatoes

• broccoli

• zuccini

• Noah’s pumpkins

broccoli

teeny, tiny peppers!

Now, if only I knew what was eating my pepper plants. And …what are those beetles on Noah’s pumpkin plants? Time to get out the insect book. More soon …I promise.

Noah's pumpkin plants are flowering.

Is this thing going to eat Noah's pumpkins?

Here’s where we’ll be sharing food with the rabbits. It’s three strips 24 feet long. The middle strip is four feet wide and the outer ones are 24 inches wide. The narrow strips are for tomatoes and peppers – bell and jalapenõs – and the wider one is for spinach, carrots, turnips, lettuce and broccoli. Another small plot will contain pumpkins and squash.

I have already made mention of a few blunders. It’s time to “fess up”. Either a math error or impatience caused me to plant some things a little early. My tomatoes, peppers, and broccoli plants are a little huge and I can’t put them in the ground for at least another four weeks! My “little shop of horrors” plants will spend the next month alternating between sitting in my driveway “hardening off” and keeping from freezing inside my studio. I hope they don’t frighten my clients.

I may have started a little early!