It’s been a weird growing season. Yes, I started things like tomatoes late, but the okra, beans, and corn were planted at appropriate times. You wouldn’t know it from looking at them. The okra is the smallest of them, just finally peeking over the edge of the raised bed it’s planted in. There are a few beans on the bushes, and most of the corn is still shorter than me. (And I’m pretty short!) The back vegetable garden has just been growing slowly this year, well, except for the kale and chard, which are huge. The surviving squash, cucumber, and melon plants in the back are just barely showing off flowers. And it’s mostly been outside our control, just the weird range of hot and dry weather we had earlier in the season, with the occasional cool dips. The surviving plants have started to expand – later than usual – as the weather has almost settled into something resembling normal. And our grass has replenished from the intermixed brown that carried into July.
It’s not all bad though… our berries have been amazing this year, from the ever-bearing strawberries (now preparing for a third harvest round), raspberries, and a mulberry tree that would normally have been done a month ago and is still filled with a plethora of red (still ripening to purple) berries. Our grand success for the season, however, sits in the front yard, a placeholder for an area that will acquire more fruit in future years. In fact, the white pumpkins’ vines filled those placeholder spots and sprawled across the new herb garden, eclipsing the basil and cilantro in their beds. With an anticipated two months or more of growth still left, some of the pumpkins are already huge and new ones are still forming. If we’re lucky, at least in terms of the garden, fall will come slowly and we’ll be able to harvest some delicious treats from the back yard.
