Garden Fare

I got out into the garden early this morning, beating the heat that's been baking us for the past week (88.9 degrees on my porch this afternoon, 94 in town). Tommy helped me pick the beans and I grabbed a few other things to make a salad for lunch.

This year I've accomplished something that I seldom manage: to have good lettuce when the cucumbers and tomatoes come in. Usually by mid-July the lettuce has gone bitter and inedible. I might manage a cucumber, radish, and lettuce salad, but by the time the tomatoes get ripe, the lettuce is long gone.
But this year I have been more vigilant about succession planting. Today's salad is from our 4th planting, and the 5th is sprouting. The lettuce we're picking right now is mostly red romaine, with some Green Ice. I added broccoli, yellow squash, radishes and dill to the lettuce, tomatoes and cucumbers.
With balsamic spritzer for dressing, and zucchini bread for a side this was a light and tasty lunch. (The green plate was a 25-cent yard sale find--isn't it pretty?)
The beans were a colorful mix of Royal Burgundy, green Tenderettes and Golden Wax. I like the purple beans because bugs don't like them much, Tenderettes because they live up to their name, and the wax beans because they're just plain pretty. After two ravages by deer, I still had enough from this picking for 11 pints of canned beans. Another short row that is just coming up should yield us some September beans. I hope to get another planting of squash and cucumbers out this week.

I can't seem to go out in the garden without returning with flowers. The orange daisy is joined here by Queen Anne's Lace and a wild grass that grows in one part of my vegetable garden. I don't know what it is, but I like its spikiness in arrangements. And I feel better about not getting it weeded!