Yesterday I decided that it was time to harvest the onions. Some of them weren't very big, but all the tops were flopped over and the necks were soft. It just seemed like they had done as much as they were going to. So I carefully dug them up and hung them on the trellis against the garage wall to dry for a couple days.
I grew onions, yay!
Then this morning, I pulled out the pea vines. So now I had an empty bed. I sort of planned ahead, and started some cucumber seeds a couple weeks ago. These are Boston Pickling cucumbers, and I have six plants. Hopefully it's not too late to get a good amount for pickles toward the end of the summer. As you can see, I repurposed some of the wire fencing that used to be pea trellises into an A-frame cucumber trellis.
I don't know yet what I'm going to plant in the other half of the cucumber bed.
In the tomato bed, things are going gangbusters. I did another round of tying up and pinching out suckers this morning after I planted the cucumbers.
This is the Black Krim plant. There are now several tomatoes here that are showing red!
The Amish Paste tomatoes are also just barely starting to turn red. It doesn't show up very well in the photo, but the biggest ones on the oldest branch at the bottom are ever-so-slightly pink.
The volunteer sunflower is fully open today, looking very beautiful.
Moving over to what was formerly the greens bed, here's what it looks like now. I pulled all the bolted lettuce out this morning, and harvested the cilantro that had gone to seed.
It's now the bean plot. I started these when I did the cucumbers, and there are 20 plants in there. I think I may have made a mistake, though. I
meant to plant pole beans, but I think I may have planted bush beans instead. Both seed packets are open, and I can't remember which one I used. So that lovely bean trellis that I constructed this morning may not be needed after all. Oh well.
There's one clump of blooming cilantro still in there that's not quite ready to pull yet, and I also stuck a basil plant in there. I planted carrots down the middle of the bed, between the beans.
Here's the coriander harvest. I'll bundle these and hang them for a while, until the seeds are dry and I can store them.
On the deck, things look pretty much the same, just bigger. Here's some of the mint: orange mint, peppermint, chocolate mint. I cannot express how glad I am that I pulled the peppermint and chocolate mint out of the half barrels and put them into their own pots. These are exuberantly happy plants.
And here are the mint-free barrels. Coming along fine!
On the left, the Grandpa Ott morning glories are ramping up with two open flowers today and lots of buds, and the Clark's Heavenly Blue morning glory and cardinal climber morning glory are growing well through no flowers yet. The zinnias are starting to show buds. The nasturtiums are up but not doing much.
In the middle, the Clematis jackmanii is blooming like crazy, the salvia is on it's second flush of flowers, and the direct-seeded marigolds have started blooming.
On the right, the Princess Diana clematis is struggling. Several of the vines were apparently damaged (bent too far and cracked) either in the nursery or in transit to my house, and died. I also suspect it may get too hot in this spot, since it gets full sun in the late afternoon. But the bee balm is growing like crazy, and I hope that it will provide some shade to help keep the clematis roots cooler. The marigolds in the barrel are also blooming, and the nasturtiums are up but growing slowly.
The herb pots are doing great, looking very lush.
And the barrels on the west end of the porch are also going great.
The 'Moonbeam' coreopsis has started blooming, the flowers are a very pretty soft yellow.
The freesia continues to bloom well. So far I've only had yellow and purple from the BiMart mixed bag.
Three yellow bulbs and two purple so far. I noticed this morning that there are a couple more spikes forming.
And I accidentally bought an entire pot of white freesia. Just 'cause I
really like white freesia and it doesn't look like the mixed bag has any.
I had both the white freesia and the jasmine inside last night, and it was lovely to fall asleep with that fragrance combination filling my bedroom. The jasmine is heavy and sultry and sweet, and the freesia is sweet and clear and peppery.
