garden | gardening on the fourth of july

from the garden... This really has been an ideal summer so far for gardening. It's a total 180º from last year. Everything in the garden is coming along beautifully. I'm starting to keep notes on what to definitely grow again next year, what I'll avoid, and basic lessons learned.

Lesson #1—inspect your wild raspberry for little white worms prior to popping it into your mouth. You'd be surprised at how many of those little buggers are hiding out in the center.

I think I'll always grow Easter Egg radishes. This is my third year planting them. I just love their array of color. I tossed in a few Cherry Belles too, which weren't too shabby. In a few weeks I'll be planting some Round Black Spanish to welcome in the fall crops with. My continued goal is to be successfully growing three seasons out of the year.

Let's welcome the rutabagas to the garden. Mind you, I can count on two fingers the amount of times I've feasted on rutabagas, but they are an excellent storage crop and I will be loving them by winter time (I hope). These Laurentians are quite the active grower and by fall, those bulbs will be huge.

The Ruby Perfection red cabbage are gorgeous. Their fuschia markings stand out with much majesty.

I unintentionally planted some Coral Shell peas from 2007, rather than this year's package. Turns out, not a problem. Peas have a seed viability of 2-3 years, so I figured that I'd probably have shotty germination at best. That also turned out inaccurate. I had a 75% germination. I would have had more plants to harvest from, but there is a chipmunk to blame for that. Nothing beats seeing my extremely finicky-eater of a four-year-old sitting on a tree stump popping peas into his mouth.

Another lesson learned was to throw in the towel on planting Waltham 29 broccoli. I've grown this variety for three years and without fail, it bolts uber-quickly. One day it is forming its head, the next day it is all yellow flowers. My Windsor on the other hand has formed perfect, tight heads. I will definitely plant this again. In fact, I'm going to try it out for a fall sowing. The Tipoff Romanesco is coming along, though the heads are still mighty tiny. Lastly is Arcadia. My experiment for this broccoli was to plant it in a completely different area of the garden. A slighty shady spot. So far, so good.

So on this beautiful Fourth of July weekend, from my garden to yours, a very happy holiday!