Sunday, July 4, 2010

Back to the garden!

It's been a busy summer (more on that soon), but I didn't realize it had been nearly a month since my last post - yikes! If anyone is still reading, here is a snapshot of what's happening in our garden in hot, hot July:

Above: I bought this veronica last year because it was covered with bees at the nursery. Looks like that wasn't a fluke.
Below: orange "roadside" daylilies, pink double delight coneflowers, and shasta daisies brighten up the front yard.

The vegetable garden is mostly thriving, with the exception of the epic failure of corn. These sungold cherry tomatoes are delicious and prolific. A keeper for sure.

Dinner tonight included three crops from our garden: snap beans, potatoes and pinkeye purple hull peas. I cooked the beans and potatoes in homemade vegetable stock for 30 minutes (with kosher salt and freshly ground pepper). For the peas, I sauteed yellow onion and jalapeno in butter, then added hot water, shelled peas, and s&p. Cooked for about 30 minutes, then stirred in chopped tomato just before serving.

Our pond is doing surprisingly well in the midst of its first hot summer. We haven't had an algae problem yet, and the three original fish are still kicking. Here is the pond last August, right after we finished installing it:

And here it is now! A beautyberry, a turks cap hibiscus, and a confederate rose hibiscus frame the pond and help hide the fence. In the pond are a mini water lily (helvola), Louisiana irises dug out of my mom's lake, pickerel rush, and a variety of annual floating plants.

Thanks for sticking with me though my inadvertently long break! Happy 4th!

3 comments:

Lisa Blair said...

Ginger, the pond looks awesome! Way to go! I thought about buying a sungold tomato plant this year. Did you buy the plant or grow it from seed? I might try it next year.

Dinner looks good! I still have not harvested a single summer vegetable. I hope to soon!

Randy Emmitt said...

Ginger,
Wow that dinner plate looks so good! Your sun golds are tasty I bet also. Wait until next year on the water garden it'll be really filled in.

Susie said...

Your pond looks great and so does that plate of food! None of my veggies have done anything except peppers.

Have a great week!