In the garden...

Time for a garden update (for my relaxed recording keeping)...

Checking on the Roma and Rutgers tomatoes every other day or so I often find new branches overladen with fruit and needing to be tied up.

A benefit of using wooden stakes is I can attach twine with a staple gun anywhere that I need it to be to get tomatoes off the ground:

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Cherry tomatoes are starting to ripen.

Zinnias and sunflowers keep the bees buzzing and the moths stopping for a drink, and hopefully pollinating squash and tomato plants.  Making a mental note to plant some flowers among the tomatoes next year.  

I am surprised at how small are the sunflower heads on the massive stalks that have grown at least 8 feet tall and are about 2 inches in diameter at their base.  Maybe their smaller size is a good thing, though.  I didn't stake these plants, and larger heads might have made them too top heavy.  

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And today, we picked all the peaches left on the peach tree.  Peaches were falling off and some were molding on the branches, so I decided rather than take a chance on losing more peaches, it would be better to pick all that were good and let them ripen in the sunroom over a few days - processing them for the freezer a few at a time.  

Enough were ripe for eating today, and at least one baggie's worth is in the freezer right now - sliced and spread out so they freeze individually before bagging up.  Visions of smoothies, mixed-fruit popsicles, and peach cobbler are dancing in my head.

I think it worked well to remove some limbs from the peach tree a year and a half ago, even though it's possibly why we didn't get fruit last summer.  This spring, I also thinned the peaches when they were about walnut-sized.  Three to six inches apart on the same branch is a good rule of thumb I've learned.  When I removed at least half of the peaches off the tree in the spring, I wondered if we'd have many peaches to pick come summer.  Today, seeing the bounty laid out, clearly there are more than enough.  And better yet, many were larger and less marked with a green peach scab than the peaches harvested two summers ago. 

Green beans (pole beans) have been producing for about a week now, and I'm picking some every two or three days.  Not enough yet to process (I hope to get enough at one time to can some this year), but they've made for tasty eating this past week.

We had some good rain earlier in the week, and oh my goodness, did I get attacked by mosquitos one morning after it rained the night before!  I was only out in the garden a few minutes before I noticed I was being swarmed and bitten. I got back to the house as quickly as I could and sprayed myself down with bug spray, but later it became obvious I was too late. My arms had provided a feast for the blood thirsty insects.  For some reason, they left my ankles alone this time.  I'm thankful for that little mercy, and I'm immensely thankful for Benadryl cream.  It's not exactly a miracle potion, but it does help tame the itch for a while. 

Looking forward to a weekend of beautiful weather, and possible rain to start next week.  It's a nice reprieve from the too-hot-too-early days of recent weeks.

I hope you're enjoying your summer!