Sanctuary Gardener Update ~ 7/15/13

It’s been a drier week in my garden the past seven days. We had a chance to dry out from the deluge, and we got a nice steady rain (one inch) Saturday, so I didn’t have to water anything (other than my potted plants). Harvests are still coming in, especially tomatoes and peppers. I harvested most of the last of my lettuce (see the picture above, which shows my Red Sails lettuce), and I’m very happy to have had it through July. Next month I plant lettuce again. My carrots are almost ready, too. (The ones in the picture could stand to get a little fatter.) I’m excited that my experiment to plant them among the tomatoes, where they’d be shaded from the intense heat of the summer sun), was so successful! I’m definitely going to do that again next year, giving me a crop of carrots growing almost year round.

This past week, I canned crushed tomatoes, dried pepperoncini, and made pickled pepperoncini rings. I also put up green bell peppers, freezing them in my new food sealer. It’s time to put up more tomatoes, harvest the last of my green beans and lima beans, and keep an eye on the quickly ripening melons. Here are pictures from the garden this week.

FLOWERING:

I’m having trouble with my eggplant this year. I’ve harvested ONE, then went quite a while without any flowers. My two plants have a couple flowers right now, but they should be covered with them this time of year. Very strange.

My gladioli are now blooming. They are so beautiful!

Gladioli

My pink crepe myrtle tree is now blooming. (The white one seems to start blooming about two weeks or so before the pink one.)

Pink crepe myrtle flower

My lettuce has now bolted. I’m letting it go for a while to see if I can collect the seed.

Black Seeded Simpson lettuce bolting

FRUITING:

My tomatillos are struggling to stay on the vine long enough to ripen due to some sort of insect attacking the fruit. (And I think we may see the culprit in this picture!) Here’s one that made it to maturity, but it had insect holes all over it. Into the compost pile it went.

Tomatillo ripening

While harvesting my fish peppers, I found one that is purple. Very unusual.

Purple fish pepper

Several of my melons are almost ready to harvest.

Cantaloupe ripening

Tigger melons ripening

Red watermelon almost ready for picking

My fig tree is loaded with figs! The tree is a little lopsided, and I’m going to have to trim that side branch this fall. Meanwhile, I have to stake the tree to keep it from listing to the side.

Fig tree

Look at all the figs, just on this one branch!

Figs

My key lime tree has baby fruit, and it’s for real this time! Not just female flowers but growing key limes. I’m so excited about my first crop!

Key limes growing

I don’t mean to end this with an ugly picture, but this may help someone. I’ve found two tomato hornworms in my garden the past week. The first was on my parsley. My beau came to the rescue and killed it. I found another one yesterday on my hot peppers (picture below), and he came to my rescue again. This is a pest you do NOT want in your garden! (Sorry it’s a little blurry. I didn’t want to get that close to it with my camera.)