The garden - July 1

The gardens are doing very well despite the low levels of rain. I'm deep-watering every other day and that seems to be keeping them growing.

My glads are never going to bloom. Really. Basically, I just get neat looking grass. The lavender I planted in here is doing well and I've got several blooms. I'll trim and harvest and hope for more year 2.

My never blooming glads and some lavender

The front flower bed is gorgeous. My pansies are going nuts this year. So are the hostas and foxglove. Not much happening with the black-eyed susan yet, but the plants look healthy so maybe they'll bloom later this month.

These are so pretty from the porch

And I like the height differences - need more of that

The kitchen garden is doing well too. I've got quite a few tomatoes growing and many more blooms. Unfortunately the jalapeño plants are refusing to do anything. I'm going to transplant three of them to the squash garden and see if the increased sun level helps.

Pretty marigolds mixed in with tomatoes

Nasturtiums too 

Tomatoes growing well

Our volunteer sunflower has a stalk about 4 feet high and over an inch thick. So cool. We're finally seeing yellow in the center so we should get a flower head soon.

Robust!

The lettuce section is loving the far end of the kitchen garden. Enough shade that it's still growing well. The volunteer kale from last year has set seed and I'll be collecting pods to dry for next year's planting.

Lettuce, arugula, kale

The basil is growing like crazy. The cilantro is not. The tall dill in the front put up heads already. I transplanted just a bit from my Dad's garden so it's not for picking this year, but for self-seeding for next. Keep fingers crossed it works.

Herbs

The squash garden looks pretty good but the plants are really small. The zucchini plants have started to put out flowers but they are only producing male buds - no female buds yet. It may be a good time to make stuffed blossoms. Hmmm, more ricotta to make! The delicata plants look healthy, have buds, but no flowers yet.

Zucchini

Delicate on the end

The chicken garden is doing pretty good too. Not much of the old seed I scattered actually germinated, but some did. I also transplanted some corn. We'll see how that goes.

Corn and peas

Some kind of squash - acorn?

I'm hoping this is watermelon

That's it for the garden update. I've started a compost pile now that I've got chicken manure to add to it. I've actually got two piles - one for bedding/manure and one for veggie compost. I'm letting the chickens work over the veggie pile and I'll add it to the manure pile as it breaks down. By next year I should have some great stuff to add to the soil.