First a flower... 馃尰馃檪 Welcome to my blog - Starting a garden Post #17. As always I begin with a flower. Sunflowers have been the most exciting success of my garden this year.
My garden is well beyond starting but I am sticking with the name because I don't think I have ever produced 17 consecutive weekly posts on one topic 馃槄
Now with out further ado, on to the garden update. The cucumbers are doing great on the trellis.
These are pickling cucumbers and we will probably have enough this week to start making pickles. My wife re-discovered her grandma's bread and butter pickle recipe last year using some of our neighbor's cucumbers. This year we will have our own cucumbers 馃榿 Its been really nice because my wife shared with her uncles and cousins. Lots of memories.
The cucumbers are also now climbing the sunflowers. Either that or this sunflower is putting on cucumbers haha.
Here's a cucumber tendril with a tight grip on a sunflower stalk.
The green beans are also climbing up the sunflowers. You can see the green bean vine wrapping around the sunflower stalk and even a blossom or two on the green bean plant.
Its really lovely to see the perfect spiral the green bean vine makes around the sunflower. So anyway the sunflowers have been great fun. And I've never used them as support and shade for climbing plants. Its always cool when plans like that actually work out.
The green beans are quite healthy. We only have a few plants but are getting a few dozen beans a week. Beans, basil and zuchinnis are really all we are harvesting right now.
Blueberries are getting close with a couple ready to pick.
Butternut squash are also growing well but still several weeks from ready.
Lots of tomatoes too but not ready.
Moving outside the garden I did have some luck foraging wild raspberries.
These are balck raspberries which mostly turn black when ripe but some stay red. The wild berries are smaller than the ones you buy at the store.
And a little tart which makes them go great with ice cream 馃構 By watching the edge of the woods (a.k.a. the ditch 馃ぃ) on our walks, I collected a couple batches of 20-30 berries this week.
Well that wraps up Post #17. Have a great week and get outside 鈽笍馃挳馃槑
Bonus Pics:
Cosmos in a wild swampy area of the yard. We cleared a pretty big space - probably 5ft by 10ft - and planted a wildflower mix this spring. This is all we've got so far, two lovely cosmos blooms. Disappointing but any new perennials in that swampy area will be nice.
Hydrangrea near house.
Yellow flower with bee.