August Garden Ramblings...

Wow! Is August already!

Summer has been hot and dry here on the island, and continues to be so... trying to be water smart yet keep the potager from becoming a dust bowl.What a challenge.

Mulch, mulch, mulch.... and water deeply every 3 or 4 days. No sprinkling of water daily! 

 

Red Malabar Spinach ... 

Yummy and beautiful.. loves the heat! Grow to 7 feet tall, or more!

 

Russian Blue and Sieglinde potatoes in the basket

We have picked some of our spuds already.

The tops all toppled and were lying around, sprawling into the paths

and over the sides of the raised garden beds.

That is not an attractive or acceptable look in my potager ; )  

Red Russian and Lacinato aka Dinosaur Kale
Kale is thriving like crazy! 
Sorry about the hose in the pic ... is one of those shrinking hoses... I love it so much! 

 Raspberry Lemonade Zinnias!  

The colourful pop in my garden this year is this fabulous mini zinnia!

It comes in all these great colours!

Tri-Star ever bearing strawberries.

Alpine strawberries

Both the alpine and the ever-bearing Tri-Star strawberries 

are currently producing more berries than I (almost) know what to do with! 

What a great problem to have ; ) 

The beets are ready to be picked, cooked, pickled, etc...

These guys are from the Speciality Beet Blend

A seed combo from Cottager Gardener Seeds. 

Bull's Blood, Chiogga, Cosby's Egyptian, and Cylindra. Yum. 

We all love beets at our house, any colour, any shape, so are really enjoying this combo! 

We also planted golden beets, to make sure we have them all!

 

Enjoying them raw, grated in salads, and in cooked pasta salads.... pickling all the rest. 

For the pasta/beet salad recipe that we have been enjoying, please see HERE!

Is so delicious! 

We use any colour and shape of beet that we happen to pull that day. 

What to plant this month..
- Greens. This means all greens ... spinach, lettuce, Oriental Greens, etc...
- Beets (hurry!)
- Carrots
- Broccoli & cauliflower (hurry!)
- Chives
- Radishes
- Scallions
- Peas! Yum!
- Kohlrabi & turnips
- Chard & Kale

Plant anything that says hurry right away, or then buy transplants instead.

All else should already have been started from seed last month in either the garden or in flats or 6 packs, etc ... so if you happened to miss the seeding time, look for transplants at the garden centres and farmers markets. 

The fall and winter garden bed has germinated nicely and is now ready to be thinned out.

Growing Walla Walla Onions, carrots of all colours and shapes, radishes, and peas

Greens of all kinds ...lettuce, spinach, Oriental greens.... 

I will be tossing some more lettuce and radish seeds in to fill up those empty spots... 

The original seeds did not seem to germinate in those areas ... 

either because they dried out at some point ...(gotta water new seeds daily!)

 or because Ruby danced in this bed just after I seeded it ; )

  Ruby Tuesday loves to help in the garden... here she is trying to decide which zinnia to eat first ; )

Tomatoes....

The tomatoes are loving this heat and doing so well... both in the garden and the greenhouse.
Here are a few that we have enjoyed during the month of July, just a teaser of what is yet to come... 

Sasha's Altai early heirloom tomatoes

Wow, this Ropreco is a really early paste style tomato!

They are small, about 2 inches long, and ripening steadily, with a few more ready to go daily. 

The determinate is so tidy, it grows nicely in a pot or planter.

Stupice. Very early, golf ball sized, yummy! 

Plum Lemon, a favourite.

One can see how it got it's name ; ) 

There will be so much more info about the tomatoes that I grew this year, when I do this years recap and top 10 tomatoes. That is usually in September. Stay tuned! Have some great new ones this year!