How it grows on July 27, 2008

Sunday, July 27, 2008

This is how the garden looks today. We are right now at the pinnacle of the gardening year; the crops planted in the spring are bearing fruit, while the fall plants are just now emerging.

We're enjoying a steady supply of crookneck squash, green and wax beans, peppers, and... the first TOMATOES! On Friday night, we rang in tomato season with a celebratory eating of tomato sandwiches: tomatoes with mozzarella and fresh garden basil, tomatoes on grilled cheese sandwiches, and tomatoes simply sliced and topped with a sprinkling of salt. I can't even put into words how satisfying they tasted.

Our tomatoes aren't perfect; most of them have cracks or holes or blemishes of some sort. But we cut the little imperfections away and enjoy what's on the inside: deeply colored, intensely flavored flesh matched with an unbeatable fragrance that eludes the supermarket counterparts.


Here are a few more scenes from my garden and table...

Green and wax beans

Squash and beans stirred into fettuccine with fresh basil

San Marzanos, now neatly aligned on their vines and still green, are the raw material of choice for our tomato sauce.


We have a cascade of watermelon vines. There are only two plants here of the Crimson Sweet variety and they are growing like mad. Lucky us!

Ready to eat?

This is the healthiest crookneck squash plant I've ever grown. We've eaten 7 good-sized squashes from it so far, and more are setting up.

Sadly, things didn't fare so well for my Lebanese cousa squash plant. That one died a very sad death from not one, not two, but four squash vine borers that decimated its stem. It was so badly mangled; not even my Band-Aid trick could have saved it.

And then we have this one, the mysterious winter squash. I swear I planted an acorn squash in this place, but this doesn't look anything like an acorn squash. It doesn't come to a point on the bottom like acorns usually do. Whatever it is, though, it's growing splendidly. I see 5 squashes on the plant so far.

This morning I transplanted my cauliflower starts. Everything I read about cauliflower indicates it's a temperamental plant that's difficult to grow. That's not going to stop me from trying at least once.

For fall, I've also planted seeds for arugula, carrots, beets, mizuna, tat soi, bok choy, kohlrabi, two kinds of kale, mustards, broccoli raab, radishes, dill, and lettuce. Later I'll put in spinach, garlic, and more arugula. We can't have too much arugula.