Sea Kale

I'm looking up info again on this veggie.  I did a little research on it before i got the seeds, but i forgot and didn't write anything down.
So i'm going to do some searches and leave my notes here. It might be useful for others and i will definitely need it myself.
I'll try and include source links, since i have never grown it myself any info i find will be based on what someone else said.

Sea Kale:

Crambe maritima

Where to buy:
Bountiful Gardens
Fedco  Seeds

More commonly available in UK and surrounding countries and grows wild in places.
The two above  links are the only US seed sources i have found.  I did not include non-US sources because they only seem to be uncommon over here.

Propagates by seed or root cuttings (called thongs). Only available by seed in US
Cultivar- "Lily White"

Root ball divisions of established plants is another way to increase

When to plant:
Direct sow in fall or spring (spring- after last frost)
Wintersow

Hardiness- USDA Zone 5a - 9b
Height- About 3'
Soil pH- neutral to alkaline
Full sun
Prevent from drying out (seaside plant, probably not very drought tolerant)
Benefits from applications of rock salt.
Spring vegetable.
Tastes much like asparagus.
Can be ornamental with its striking blueish leaves.
Flowers are not beautiful (cabbage-like) but are strongly scented. Scent is described to be like honey and compared to brugmansia.
Dried seed clusters can also be ornamental according to taste in decor.

The seeds are pea-like and covered in a corky jacket which must be nicked before planting. The seed coat allows the seeds to float around in seawater for quite some time (years even!) so be sure to prepare the seeds properly or they can take forever to germinate.
Once germinated and growing they need to be set in their permanent place.  Then its at least one year before they can produce edible parts. Up to three years according to some sources. Plants can live for many years,,  i read anywhere from 8-20+.

Harvesting- some sources say that the newest shoots can be eaten, there was nothing  said about these being blanched shoots or if they were the first growth in the spring as they naturally wake up. I guess this is something i'll figure out myself.  I think it means that the shoots can be uncovered and harvested from their bed of winter mulch if a more dedicated blanching method was not used.

Methods of blanching:
The large parts are inedible unless blanched. It seems that almost any large container can be used for this as long as they are opaque. Based on descriptions it seems that a 5 gallon bucket will do for a cover. I think white ones will let in too much light. They do come in darker colors, i have seen dark green ones that would likely work best.  Some instructions say to hill up any fallen leaves around the plants then cover all with the bucket and put bricks on the bucket to hold things steady.  Check them now and then.

They can also be lifted and taken inside to be forced like is commonly done across the pond with rhubarb.  In my blogroll is "Mal's Allotment" and she posted about this during springtime.

Diseases and other things:

I guess they can get club root like their brassica kin.  So if you have issues with club root, Sea Kale may not do well for you.  I read that the cabbage butterfly will lay  eggs on them, but damage is often minimal. I'm sure woodchucks and birds will nibble them and i have learned that woodchucks all have different preferences, so who knows if there will be a lot of damage or not.

How to eat:

Shoots can be steamed, broiled, grilled and tempura fried. I'm sure the ways are endless, but i like simplicity so i don't plan to need many recipes.
Give me my salt, pepper and olive oil and maybe some balsamic vinegar and i'm happy enough.

Sources:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/allotment/2009/mar/02/blogpost
http://www.gardenzone.info/crops/seakale.php
http://www.1911encyclopedia.org/Sea-Kale
http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/54732/
http://www.growfruitandveg.co.uk/grapevine/vegging-out/success-sea-kale_11493.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crambe_maritima



 

Picture post

I got my Bountiful Gardens seed order yesterday. That was fast. The seeds look good and there are plenty of them.
I got things like SeaKale, Schizandra,  Serviceberry, Amole and Hawthorn, among other things

My Horizon Herbs order has not shipped yet, i looked up my account and it says backorder.... so i guess i won't know for a while.  I'm a little annoyed, i wish the website was kept up to date better.  If something is unavailable it should not be purchasable until it is ready. Its not a huge problem to me, but i'm just sayin'.....

Shopping bag-full in the fridge

Out in the garden i have more yellow squashes.  I'm still enjoying it but the yearly novelty has worn off.
I need to pick more green beans today and i'm out of room in the freezer so i will eat or give them away.
They aren't producing enough for a big enough canner-load that i'd consider worth the effort.  If i had ripe tomatoes i'd do some cans of beans and some cans of tomatoes in one load.
I have been enjoying the Canning forum at the Ball website.  Its a bit slow there, but the members do answer questions within a day and seem to know their stuff.  They are also patient with multiple questions.

I have an  Artichoke!

And... what is this?

A little closer....

Ooooh!  Its turning color!

I didn't expect Siberia to be the first to start ripening. It was the last tomato seedling i was able to get in the garden and it was not the first to flower. Its also partially shaded from both ends- the corn in the morning and the other tomatoes by the afternoon....

And look at all these green tomatoes!

Even the Topsy Turvy is putting a real effort forward.

Size comparison with the onions

Hale's Best i think....

Are you ready for some Football?   Almost.

Unfortunately the Pony Yellow cracked,  but there are more.
;;

Surprised this missed my daughter's attention....

Carnival squash

The great pumpkin turning orange

A  Point One cabbage that seems to have fully recovered

Corn silk

And tassels

Siberian Motherwort

The patio set...  sans camp chairs. It was threatening rain so we put them away.  We got those Coleman folding canvas chairs. They are more convenient than non-foldy chairs because we can take them anywhere and they store much easier.

And this is Chuck...  Chuck likes collard greens....

Chuck won't be eating my collard greenss anymore, since he has been relocated to a nice place about 8 miles from here.

Oh, and here's what my hubby calls my Nuclear Reactor

Its the warning stickers that freak him out.


We've had sporadic rain showers but nothing substantial. It has gotten hotter in the last day or so and humidity was really high today. Nothing like the middle of the US is getting.

Still trying to keep up on weeding. That seems to be the way of it this time of year.
The seeds i got from Bountiful Gardens will likely be Wintersown since they are shrubby or hardy type plants.

I need to sort through my collection so i have some idea of what i have going on or else i will end up buying even more seeds....  i can't use them all as it is!


,

Woodchuck, part 3.

So, woodchuck number three has been captured and is awaiting relocation.

We actually caught this one last night.  I had the trap set and baited for the last couple days (i think i am getting pretty good at anticipating their entry points) and i had been checking it every so often.  I had spread some blood meal and bone meal on Thursday, but i watered the whole garden deeply yesterday morning, washing much of it away- at least the smell.

But hubby was outside last night, enjoying a cigar and the new patio set he cobbled together from the clearance sections of a few stores. (It looks nice and it all actually matches.) And he kept hearing this clashing metal sound.  After a good 45 minutes he remembered that i'd set the trap and he went to check it.  There was the  groundhog.
So hubby and the groundhog spent the evening  at the patio set, in front of the  fire pit, chatting it up.   Hubby gave it another apple and a few greens.  He placed two small pieces of plywood in a tipi shape to help it relax overnight.

So anyway, its now been moved to the shade and in a few minutes it will be relocated- hubby has some errands to run in that direction but has other things to be doing right now...

I did find it interesting that the first woodchuck was caught in broad daylight- brazen little thing-  that was the crazy one that attacked me and gave me "Lord of the Flies" mental flashbacks for  3 weeks....

The second woodchuck was caught in the early morning and this third one was an evening raider.
I guess they all find their little niche.
And they all found my Havahart.
Of course they found my veggies first.

This one sampled everything though. Carrot & parsnip tops, sweet potato leaves, cabbage, JA leaves, collards, the remains of my broccoli... but not the Swiss chard or Kale.  That kale...  i wonder if the other stuff is simply tastier or woodchucks don't like kale.  Seems unlikely, but if kale would be safe from them i'd grow rows of it forever.  Anyhow, the only things it really damaged are the 3 collard plants.

I haven't cleared out the broccoli and chard yet because the seeds i planted for a fall crop have not sprouted yet.  None of them.  Six types of seed, from different places and no sign of a seedling. I'm a little surprised at this.

I'm trying to think of something i can direct sow into those spots that will actually produce before the end of the season, but i'm not sure of anything- Johnny's SS blog did mention dill and cilantro can still grow this time of year in this area, but time is running out quickly.  I wish i'd planted more beans & cukes and i wonder if its too hot to plant peas.
We have had some cool nights and daytime temps have been cool, high 70's.  Its been great weather for humans.  Its also been dry, no rain the last 4 days and none in sight for the next three at least.

No ripe tomatoes yet. The Romas are starting to get that bronzy look though, where the red pigment starts to come through and mixes with the green.
I have a lot of very green tomatoes and the Polfast has a giant tomato on it.
I guess i have to see if i can look up what weather conditions are conducive to tomato ripening. I have been reading garden boards and blogs a lot and i keep seeing that other people's 'maters aren't ripening the usual way this year.

I picked a huge bunch of basil yesterday and made Macadamia, Roasted Garlic & Basil Pesto. I had to leave the garlic out of hubby's cause he's scared of garlic.  Until he tried mine (i added the roasted and smashed garlic to half the batch in a separate bowl), and realized he was being silly.
I made one of those  "meat" with 40 cloves one time and the aroma of it freaked him out. I thought it was delicious but he was traumatized i guess.  Its been 5 years, but he still thinks i was trying to drive him out of the house that night, lol.

Oh, speaking of garlic, i think i might pick the bulb fennel, it hasn't grown at all for weeks and i'm sure its planning to bolt, but when i pick it i think i will sow some buckwheat there and in the fall after first frost i will plant some garlic.  So i can't wait to have baby fennel, roasted in EVOO.

I picked another pound or so of green beans and probably another 3-4 pounds of summer squashes. We've been eating and sharing it out.
I can pick the squash daily, the green beans get picked every other day and are still producing  nicely.

One of the oval watermelons is about the size of a Nerf football and the round watermelons are approaching croquet ball size.  I picked one of the slicing cucumbers the other day, it was over a foot long but not over ripe and the pickling cukes are averaging one good sized cuke a day.  I need to plant a lot more of these next summer if i want to use them for more than a daily snack.

I haven't felt up to doing any work in the flower beds and where hubby has seeded the bare half of the yard i can't really get in to put the edging around my grape and berry row.  It also seems like the corner brackets i wanted to get from Lowe's are unavailable. What a shock. >8o(

So not much going on but weeding, woodchucks and trying to decide what to do next if at all....

We have another woodchuck.

Its about time....
This one has gone for the collards,  He's eaten 3 of them pretty bad.  The plants are big enough to recover by now,  but he took quite a chunk out of them. Its amazing how much they can eat. 

So i have the Havahart trap set and i hope i catch him quickly so he can find a new home.
I spread some blood and bone meal out in the garden to see it it can maybe keep him out and make the bait look like a better deal.
Only problem is that the dog thinks the bags were full of treats (the bone meal smells like cheap dog treats- for good reason) and she was almost howling while i was hand-broadcasting it. She thought she was being teased i guess.
I've concluded that Bassets are totally ruled by food. lol

I think the green beans are about done,  but i haven't been able to get out there and pick. There were a lot of little ones still starting the last time i was out looking closely. I'll try to make it a priority.  I should get another pound or two out of them if they haven't gone by.  A lot of them were coming out crescent shaped, i was told that this happens when things get dry and it was dry for a time there.
My legs hurt so bad last night that i was nauseous... so i don't know if i may have to send my oldest out to pick or maybe hubby will be willing to.
I don't know if he has ever picked green beans before. :oP  My oldest only picks cucumbers.
But i need to try and do it cause i promised the neighbors some more summer squash and i haven't gotten it to them yet. I have some in the fridge, but there is something in me that won't allow myself to give them 3 & 4 day old produce.

I keep forgetting to update the harvest record on the side bar. I really wanted to keep it going so next year i have some idea of what to expect and to decide what to do if i expand a little.  I guess i'm just not that dedicated, lol!

I have gotten well over 30# of food so far from green beans and squash to cukes and Swiss chard.  That's not so bad considering i never got any cauliflower and only 2 nubs of broccoli, and i harvest the SS so small.


 I'm trying to revive my Kefir grains.  They got neglected in the refrigerator about 5 months ago. I wasn't finding the time to refresh them every day and drink the milk so i set them in the fridge and lost track of it.  Its hard to tell if they are kefiring or if the milk is just souring,  it smells like Kefir, but i think i'm going to discard the milk for a few more days just to be sure.

I gave the grapes some bone meal as well as the berries.  I couldn't find anything else at the store with a higher P number that didn't look like fruity pebbles cereal or cost an arm and a leg.

I think that's it for today... and i am awaiting delivery of my canner.  It is like Christmas in July!

This and that

I got the email that my  canner has been sent out, ETA is tomorrow, which is sooner than expected.  But who's complaining?
I showed it to my hubby (the item listing) and he said it looked a lot like his grandmother's, only hers had a gasket.

Its going to be fun to see if i can get enough out of my garden at one time to use it to capacity and if i will have enough time to pick and prep enough to use it.

If not this year, there's next year.

I learned a lot so far this year. The most important things were regarding the sun direction and where shade is coming from.

I think i might run my rows in the opposite direction next year. My dad suggested this becuse the way the slope goes, having raised my raised beds against the flow of water will trap the water for the plants.
If we have a wet year, this might work against me though.

I could put the tall things all the way to the back  and the shorter things will come forward.

The way i have things now, nothing in the garden really shades anything else in the garden, but that is not always such a good thing.  I think my kales and collards should need shade.
Good thing is that hubby likes the garden well enough this year that he thinks we might add another row to it,

Corn is starting to tassel, i think Golden Bantam  was the first (closest to the tomatoes) and next is Incredible, Stowell's Evergreen was the one that didn't germinate so well or as quickly- but that was seed from 2008 anyway.  It is catching up though.

I picked a few carrots yesterday to have a sample. They were small, maybe a nickel size diameter, but they were longer than i expected them to be.  You read about soft, sandy soil and how carrots need it, but i  wasn't quite sure if my soil fit that definition having little to compare it to.

I have only gardened in my family's soil for the most part, and even now most of my soil came from the same 10-15 acres i grew up on, how many people get to say that?  I get to stick my toes in the same dirt i grew up running around on as a kid.

Anyhow, the carrots were a little less tender than i hoped, but i wouldn't call them tough, they were a bit bland, i was hoping for a sweeter taste, but maybe that comes later.  I'm sure my test sample of 4 were picked a bit early.  But i at least saw enough to know that the soil is a good texture for them and they showed no sign of insect damage.

I'm sure i have some more cukes to pick, one of the slicers was getting about grocery store size and it rained last night.  Cukes stop producing if their fruits mature too far and i didn't plant enough to make us happy as it is, so i can't let them stop producing too early!

One of the Carnival squashes are getting huge.  When i grew them in my tiny garden they didn't get much bigger than normal acorn squash. They were about the size for one serving for two people when cut in half.

I did find out that Jerusalem Artichokes can be canned, its in the Ball "Complete Book of Home Preserving". Its a relish recipe that sounds nice.  I should be able to get enough to try making some.
I do plan to grow less of them next year and give the extra space to the asparagus, but i had to start out with so many to be sure i'd have enough to try myself if something tried to eat them on me.  I planted a few pounds in my parent's garden many years ago and chipmunks ate them all.  So i overplanted my sample plot in case they attract chipmunks.  Right now it looks as if they don't.

I thought it was interesting that USDA and Ball don't even recommend canning summer squash anymore.  I guess its no big loss, even freezing it 'ruins' it.  Its great to add to sauces like that, but after any type of processing its definitely best as a secondary ingredient. Its not "butter ready"  from a can or freezer bag.

There is a bird that keeps spearing my unripe apples. I found one last week that had peck marks in it, so i pulled it off and tossed it.  The other day i found another one with the same marks.... this time i left it. Maybe the bird will remember that he's already sampled from this tree...  Where i missed a couple sprayings i have misshapen apples, but its not a big deal, i wasn't counting on much from this tree this year.  I mainly wanted to see if it would survive to produce after being neglected so long and to get apples big enough to try and have the type ID'd.  We are still going to go to the orchard this fall where we will end up picking three times as many apples as we need.   But maybe this year i could can some pie filling and make sauce.

I need to get back in and catch up with weeding again. I have let it go a bit since the plants are big enough to not get smothered easily, but i can't let the weeds go to seed or it will be another uphill battle next year.

I also ordered some bare root Bocking Comfrey from a place called Horizon Herbs. They ship Priority Mail with about a $14 minimum so i  looked around and they also have Clove plants for a decent price. This is guess is the first time they have had any to sell. Its a different name, but according to Wikipedia they are synonomous-  Syzygium aromaticum and Eugenia aromatica-   why they are different names i have no clue.  But anyway i figured buying one was a better way to justify the price of shipping the Comfrey roots.  If they do well for me i can share any future comfrey plants out.

My current clove tree is doing fine, it isn't really doing anything, but it does not appear to be dying at least! :o)

I also put in an order with Bountiful Gardens, some berry plant seeds and they have SeaKale which i think i can wintersow.  I can wintersow all the seeds i just ordered, which is why i figure i should get them sooner than later.  Either they sit in my fridge or theirs.

video post

It is giving me trouble, takes 20 minutes to upload each 2-3 minute clip and i had a hard time getting it to let me place my paragraphs so the videos would be in order.  To keep the filesize well within the allotted size i had to shoot in the lowest resolution my camera had.  So forgive me the wind, my getting flustered and not-so-smooth camera handling, lol

But it was fun to play with this feature!


Tomatoes and corn

...

Peppers, eggplants, cole crops

.....

Parsnips, houseplants, sweet tater......nettles!....summer squash, burdock.

 

Salsify, rosemary, cauliflower...- no,  brussels sprouts, beans, rutabagas, beets n' carrots....

....

Cukes, havahart trap, winter squashes....

....

..

The rest of the yard, asparagus, Jerusalem Artichokes, berries and grapes, dirt...

So that is that.

I'll probably try it again later this summer and see if i do better. 

Oh and the blue thumb, that is the remains of a manicure my oldest daughter did for me for 4th of July.  My nails were a mix of blue, red and white. Only my thumbs still have paint on them. lol

Tomatoes....

They have 4 days to ripen if i am going to meet my goal of garden tomatoes before August.
I have never written it down anyplace that i can remember but i don't know for sure when tomato season usually starts.

A lot of them are getting pretty big but no obvious ripening yet.

I tamed the Birdhouse gourd yesterday. I had been pulling at it and trying to redirect the way it grew, but it was going where it wanted anyway.  So i got the big kitchen scissors out. Anything going toward the center of the garden was removed.  I discovered a few little watermelon fruits were hiding under all those leaves.  Some are oval and plenty that are perfectly round.
The gourd was also crawling over my rosemary plot and the two strawberries from seed that made it (those are looking good actually)  and the Shiso plant.
I'll have to look back at my seed list to remind myself of which plants are watermelon, and which are cantaloupe type, also which ones the oval ones belong to.  I know Pony Yellow is a round type, but that is as much as i am sure of.
 

I also toned down hubby's pumpkin. It was getting impossible to get past it in the row and it was encroaching on my onions.  I also had to trim and redirect my summer squash plants. They were trying to crawl into the aisles and they were shading out my globe artichokes.  I had expected my globe artichokes  to be taller in their first year than they turned out to be.  They are barely 8" off the ground, if that. I have no idea if that is normal.  One did try to produce a tiny choke about the size of my thumb. The plants are  fairly wide but not tall at all.

I have lots of things to take pictures of to keep the monthly/weekly growth comparisons current.

From the back:

 

 

 

 

Its almost August?!!!

Summer is going by fast. 
The garden is good, we've gotten some nice rains in the last week.  I have blanched, vac-packed and froze 4 pounds of green beans and 2 pounds of  summer squash.

I love my new Foodsaver.  It is so easy to use compared to my old one.  Now the old one wasn't bad, but it was like driving a stick-shift compared to driving an automatic with cruise control.  They both work fine, but one is way more comfortable to drive.
My new Foodsaver has settings that the other one didn't. It has a 'gentle' setting so it won't smash things like blanched summer squash, and it has a setting for 'wet' foods- also like blanched summer squash.  This means that it won't vacuum so hard that it sucks out the water and ruins itself.  Any water remaining in the blanched foods did not become a vacuuming issue even with the heat seal- which i noticed is almost 2x as wide on this machine as my old one.
I'm sure part of the difference in the way they work is because of the brand name bags.
I had been using the generic food storage bags that i could get for about $1 less at WalMart.  It had been so long since i had used real Foodsaver bags that i didn't notice there is a difference in them.  The new Foodsaver came with a roll of bags and a whole packet of pre-cut bags.  The brand name plastic has a different texture, almost rubbery. 
I had tried using the generic bags to store things like pet food and dehydrated apple rings, but those items had sharp edges that broke the bags so the air leaked back in after a few days.  I bet the brand name bags would work better if i try that again.

The reason i tried vacuum packing cat food was because my cat eats Solid Gold brand cat food.  Its not a cheap food and we normally buy it in 5# bags.  When i worked at the same pet store we bought the food at it was easy to buy 3 bags at a time and my employee discount made it a better value anyway.  After the accident and since i don't always feel up to a trip out to get pet supplies hubby took over most of  the grocery shopping duties. He thought we'd save a few dollars and a trip or two if we bought the big bag of Solid Gold.
Problem is that we have one cat.  By the time he eats the whole bag the last half is stale.  He also likes his dry food to be cold. I have always stored his food bag in the fridge, (one main reason for that is because we had ants that were attracted to the meaty smell and the fats that are in it) so he is used to a fresh bowl of food having a different temperature.
Anyway, you can't fit a 20# bag in the fridge.  So i tried measuring out and vac-packing 2 week portions in the generic bags.  I figured i could probably clean and reuse the bags on more cat food a few times if it worked.  But it didn't because the food punctured the bags.  Since the bags were ruined and could not be reused, what we saved on the bigger bag of cat food was lost in trying to keep it fresh until it was eaten. 
I don't know if i would ever bother trying to use it for cat food again (unless i think it may have some emergency food storage applications like a Bug Out Bag for natural disaster evacuations- which are almost unheard of around here- but you never know!), but i do think i will be trying the brand name bags for foods that are dried to a crisp.
Now that i can compare the bags side by side, i don't like the generics very much at all,  I'll pay the extra for the real ones.

I'm not sure why my apple slices dried so crispy though,  the slices i get at the health food store are leathery.  In my dehydrator, the apples were either too soft and obviously not done and then they became crisp...no in between- or i missed it.  I have read books on dehydrating, but i don't remember what i read about apples...  maybe i need to borrow the book from the library again.

On to grapes...

The Frontenac has decided to wake up and show signs of life! It has just unfurled some small leaves.  Of course it would do this after i completely gave up on it and spoke to the company it came from.  They have a pending order to send me a new one in early April 2011.  So i feel weird now.  BUT both Burpee and Stark have unconditional guarantees- "if for any reason you are unsatisfied....refund or exchange will be granted".
I hate to complain,  i might do it a lot in some things but i don't enjoy it.  But i really was unsatisfied with the grapes from Burpee and this one from Stark's.  Everything else met or exceeded my expectations, so maybe i should stop feeling dishonest when i accept my refund/replacements.  Bottom line is that i don't know if these 3 grape plants will even make it through the winter considering how late they began above ground growth.  They may not have time to harden off this Summer's wood. If that is the case, i will be correct on two fronts.  I was shipped plants that not vigorous enough to grow well their first year, this could delay my years till harvest time frame.
I have spent a lot of time thinking about this and feeling bad for not being happy. I don't like to be ungrateful about anything, even little grape cuttings. I think i need to get off the guilt trip, stop feeling bad about being displeased and let the companies do their job and make it right.  Why is that so hard for me?
But i have decided to do it.  So i will.

My lilies bloomed a few days ago.  These were bought as Stargazers but i remember Stargazers as having more white along the edges.  Maybe its my growing conditions.  They are on the back side  of the house and you don't see them when they open, you smell them.  I planted 2 bulbs about 3 years ago, this year i got to pick them and bring them in the house before the bugs got to them too bad.  The three blooms perfume the whole house.

Yesterday my dad brought over 3 loads of topsoil for us

And then he spread it out with the big tractor.

Today he plans to stop by with the littler tractor and drag a weighted pallet over it to smooth it out better.  Hubby will put down some seed and with luck, we will have a nice lawn to enjoy next summer!

Update on the Koolickles.  They are delicious. Something like a bread and butter pickle but more tart. Not as sweet as a sweet gherkin but maybe its because i used a sugar-free mix.  I can't actually taste 'strawberry' flavor, but it has the tart/tangy/salty/sweet thing going on. I bet adding a hot pepper will make it even more interesting.  Anyway, the flavors don't clash at all like i thought they might. I plan to keep a supply of these going indefinitely. 

I need to update my harvest record on the side bar. I haven't done it in about a week, but the garden is really beginning to supply what i finally feel comfortable as calling a "harvest".  I have been able to give away some produce even.  The tomatoes are not red yet, but there are a lot of green fruit on all of the plants.  The tomatillo has even gotten a husk on it.

I have not done any further work on the flower bed, but the neighbor husband has picked out a few plants they wanted to have (my hubby told them to go ahead if they wanted or they could wait for me to save them some)  he replanted them in their back yard where it looks like they are creating a sort of pocketed terrace on the slope.  It looks like it will turn out pretty neat if they continue to enlarge the beds. I'm glad he felt free to come in and take what he wanted, that way i'm sure they can feel more in control of what they see out their window.

Hubby is now painting the door to the shed.  He has been doing the shed project gradually. It used to be a screenhouse, but we hardly ever used it. The screens let in dust and after a couple rainy summers things started to get moldy. We had a table set out there that got covered in dust and pine pollen, then in the damp it all grew mold. Took an hour to clean it up whenever we wanted to use it a few times a week.  So we stopped using it.  The screens were also disintegrating.  So we decided that we needed a shed more than a screenhouse and hubby got a few sheets of plywood and closed it in and painted it up nicely.  It was a few weeks longer before he could get the door made, but he did and now it needs a coat of paint to finish the job.  He's pretty pleased with himself since he really did it all on his own.  Its a good sort of manly ego boost. :o)

I plan to get more pictures of the garden, i have to keep a visual record so i can compare years against the others.
The pictures from this Spring compared to this Summer are always quite amazing.  I don't know why i forget every year how quickly and large the plants end up growing. Its funny.

I'm really tired today so i hope to spend much of it simply reading and picking away at small household tasks.