Back in the Garden. Again.

70 this morning, partly cloudy and breezy. Humid but not as bad as yesterday. 88 as I write this.

I spent this morning in tbe garden again, this time pulling up the remaining beets and our second crop of onions, as well as some bolted lettuce and cabbage "stumps".  Then it was tiller time.

I tilled as much as I could still get the tiller in to, then hoed and hand-pulled weeds. They come up easily in this good garden soil, the result of years of mulch. I replanted where there was room with green beans, lettuce, and sunflowers. The beets will go to a neighbor or if she can't get them, then I will pickle them. The onions will go the woodshed to dry with the others before hanging up in the workroom to store for later. I also pulled some dill and will dry the leaves and store them away for winter. Yesterday I cut oregano and it is almost dry--the pilot light on my old Tappan range is perfect for drying herbs.

Here is the celery, all wrapped up to blanch for a couple weeks. And the new-tilled ground, where the beets were.

Those are my late cabbages to the left. I am trying hard to protect them from bugs, but it's not easy. The cabbage moths have resisted all my efforts so far, and the poor Brussel sprouts leaves are just riddled with holes.

The zucchini and yellow squash plants are monstrous!

This the cucumber vines, growing over the arch. I should be making pickles next week if everything continues to go well with them.

Part of the upper garden, which doesn't usually show in my photos. In here is peppers, green beans, lettuce, radishes, carrots, butternut squash, a few potatoes, and a volunteer pumpkin vine. The new asparagus bed is here too, but not seen in thr photo. I will have to get a picture of those pretty new plants soon. In front left you can see the onions, just before I pulled them. There are 3 kinds, white, red, and yellow. Right close beside them are lima beans that I planted about a month ago, which I hope will now spread out to take the onions' space. I weeded and hoes this area, and planted sunflowers here after the photo. I planted a little lettuce in the top right corner.  I am not sure how well it will do in July heat, but I had the seeds, so thought I'd give it a try. It stays shady up there until about noon.

Just look at the size of those zucchini leaves! They are absolutely huge. The plant itself is about 4 feet tall.

The kale leaves have gotten so big that they are breaking off the trunk of the plant. Larry feeds these big guys to the rabbits.

Volunteer dill is scattered all through the garden.

These are my leeks. They are doing much better than last year. I got one side weeded, need to do the other. To their right are the green beans, which we are picking from now. 

Red bergamot enjoying the morning sun. I am having a little deer trouble in this flower bed. They have eaten the flowers off the coneflower and several other plants. But fortunately our deer don't like bergamot. I acted dome Russian sage yesterday and I hope that will deter them from foraging around in there for other goodies. Larry also laid chicken wire on the ground in the corner where the deer seem to enter.  They won't walk on that so maybe they will be discouraged from eating the flowers.

These two worked hard, watching me stringtrimming around the yard! 

When the trimming was done, I was drenched in sweat and plastered with grass clippings. I stripped outside--nice that our place is that private!--and jumped in the shower. My reward for 3 hours of work: spice cake and iced tea, a good book and my rocker on the porch!

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