Abundant Harvest, Abundant Beauty

It has been a while since my last post.  Not much has really happened on the garden front other the the same stuff that happened the time before.  We have had a slow but steady harvest of squashes and peppers.  The tomatoes have been slow to ripen.  And the onions have been harvested, though it was a rather disappointing crop.  Mostly small onions.

The Beans are taking their time, finally blossoming in the last week.  The beans are starting to form.

We also harvested 4 quarts of cherry tomatoes (Sun Gold and Sweet One Hundreds).  Too much all at once.  So neighbors are getting the benefit of fresh picked tomatoes.

While at the garden yesterday evening a family of Turkeys wandered by.  We have seen them around and heard them, too, but not this year yet. 

And yes, that is a bride being photographed off in the distance.  There are often photographers wandering around using the grounds as background for senior portraits and wedding pictures.  And weddings and receptions are not uncommon. 

One of our garden neighbor's sunflowers.

We are having some gorgeous weather

We are having some very fine weather now: occasional rain showers, plenty of sun, not too hot.  The garden is responding very nicely.  Everything is green and lush.

We had some of our Chard this week.  Nothing like fresh from the garden.

The Beans are climbing and I expect we will see blossoms very soon.

The Tomatoes have gone wild.  We aren't really staking them this year and the plants have been unbelievably vigorous.  Not many tomatoes yet.

The Squashes are doing much better now and we have been getting a slow, steady stream of yellow and green squashes to add to our menus at home.  The Patty Pans are mostly being eaten by some small toothed being.  Not sure who the culprit is, but if the Patty Pans continue to serve as a decoy and the other squashes are left untouched (as has been the case so far), we can accept that sacrifice.

The evening's bounty.

And part of the garlic harvest.

We were treated to a fly over by some Canada Geese.  Always fun to see.

Just a lovely picture on a lovely evening.

It has been a while...

Since my last post, we have made several visits to the garden, but I have just not had my camera with me.  Things are coming along fairly well now, especially since we have had a bit more dry, sunny weather, although it has been mostly very humid.  We are still getting enough regular rain that we have not needed to do any watering at all this season (other than for new plantings).

The beans are doing great.  They have been loving the hot weather.

We have yet to harvest any Chard, but it is ready and looking real good.

The blueberries are ripening.  We are hoping that the birds/critters/or whatevers don't get them all before we do, like they did last year.

We are getting some find looking peppers.

And the Garlic is almost ready to harvest.

A lush section of the garden with good looking Basil, Peppers and Marigolds.

Another view of the meadow.  Cloudy, but no rain.

What is that bright light in the sky?

Well, after another week of muggy, humid, showery weather, today there was this big bright light in the sky and the air felt comfortable...I really don't know what to think of this.  A rare day compared to the last few weeks.  Nearly perfect.

A quick garden visit this evening.  Everything is looking good.

Good progress with the pole beans.

The lettuce is still doing well.

Blueberries are looking rather plump and ready to ripen.

And even the squashes are looking better, in spite of being chewed up pretty good.

Other things are growing and blooming and being prolific (including the weeds).  It is a lovely time in the garden, especially when the weather gets nice like this.  It just makes everything seem better.

And of course, the obligatory sunset picture:

Too hot to garden...it's all about the clouds

It has been a very warm muggy Fourth of July extended weekend.  We made a few brief visits to the garden to check up on things, not accomplishing much of anything like work.  Things are coming along, looking good mostly. 

The only issue now is that something is eating the leaves of our squashes.  Looks like insects and/or slugs, but they are doing a job on them.  We hope they will survive this onslaught of hungry critters.

Otherwise, the clouds kept things very interesting all through the weekend.  First on Friday evening we stopped by for a quick look and had a fantastic view of a thunderhead cloud off to the north:

We followed the cloud up to South Freeport where we had dinner at Harraseeket Lunch and Lobster and were treated to the aftermath of the little bit of rain it produced and a bit of a rainbow:

Then there was the sunset when we stopped at Mainely Custard on Route 1 in Freeport for dessert:

Then this evening after help a friend put her sailboat in, we stopped to pick some lettuce and were treated to another beautiful sunset:

The sky has been great, but the garden needs lots of work.  Weeding especially.  Guess we will be out there some evening this week.

Does this look familiar?

Once again...a visit to the garden Sunday afternoon/evening with clouds threatening rain on the horizon.  I see a pattern developing here...

After a week without getting out to the garden, we finally made it back and were pleased to find that our pole beans, planted last weekend are all coming along very nicely:

 And the lettuce is getting close to being harvest-able:

Even the chard is perking up:

But not the carrots.  I think I have counted about half a dozen carrots that are actually growing.  We do have some radishes coming along though:

Everything else is coming along.  The hot sunny weather we had during the first part of the past week was definitely a boon to the garden and the weeds.  There are a number of tomatoes forming on our Sungold plant already:

We finally took the row covers off the squashes and were amazed to see the growth.  Four very healthy looking hills of squash with blossoms and even some yellow squashes forming.  Let's just hope the plants are prepared to fight off the pests that are certain to be seeking them out very soon:

We did some grass cutting in the paths around our plots and some weeding among the onions.  And we harvested the first of our Garlic Scapes.  That is always a big milestone that we look forward to because not only are they delicious, but that is an indication that the Garlic harvest is not too far off:

So, the rain held off and didn't actually start until early afternoon on Monday, but it was a torrential rain for a couple of hours.  And there is rain predicted through Tuesday at least.  Some more sunny and warmer weather is predicted for the 4th and the weekend, so I would expect that we will be seeing a lot of things happening in the garden in the next couple of weeks.  (We had 7.32 inches of rain in June with 14 days of measureable rain, 6 days with a trace of rain, and only 10 days with no rain.  Over all that was nearly twice the normal rainfall for the month.  Enough!)

And a post script:  While we were in the garden, there was a deer wandering through the meadow.  Trust me, that is a deer (just like that was an Osprey) :