July has been quite abundant in the backyard! The vegetable part hasn’t been much, but the berries ripened early this year and have been producing like gangbusters!
In the main garden, we have had enough asparagus that we’ve been able to have it added to a bunch purchased from the store. This year has been the most we’ve harvested, so hoping it continued to grow even more in coming years.
The summer squash have come up and are just now producing blossoms. I’m hoping we get some zucchini and yellow squash here soon.
The spinach all started really well but then bolted. 🙁 Oh well. I didn’t get it planted early enough and we had some hot days.
I had left a kale plant from last year that grew about 4 ft tall and went to seed and at the base, it started growing again this year. So we have had kale once and I can go pick more!
The right side is all flowers planted for my step-daughter’s upcoming wedding. I’m not sure we’ll have blooms in time, but I’m seeing 1 zinnia bloom beginning and 1 sweet pea bloom coming along. Hopefully we’ll have at least a few blooms ready at the right time.
The 3 berry bushes at the back of the garden have done really well this year. The Logan berry still has a few blooms, so more are coming. The Tayberry has finished up. And the Boysonberry is just starting to ripen.
The blueberries have done great this year! I’ve picked almost 12 lbs so far and we still have a couple of plants still ripening. For the most part, they’re wrapping up. The blueberries usually ripen STARTING in July, but this year, we were half done with them by July 1st. It was an early year for the berries!
In the side berry patch, we have blackberries, boysonberries and a mystery bush that are all producing well! The blackberries have now finished up.
The mystery bush is producing more this year than I’ve seen in past year. But that bush is covered in thorns. I wear a leather glove to hold up the vines so I can find the berries. I have some bamboo cut that I’m going to use to make a trellis for this one. Hopefully next year, I’ll be able to get into that bush a bit better.
The two other tayberries have produced alright, but they’re not as prolific as the one at the garden.
The tomato garden is going gangbusters too! This picture was taken in early July and now those tomatoes are several feet taller! We have a lot of blossoms and a couple of green tomatoes so far.
In front of the tomatoes are 4 pepper plants. They are producing blossoms, so hopefully the peppers will have time to ripen before fall.
There’s basil planted in there too, but it is coming along slowly.
The parsley I planted last year is continuing and now has started to produce seed. The thyme next to it is great and has pretty little blossoms that the bees love. And finally, in that area are chives. There’s a whole boatload there, they’ve blossomed and died off and then a few new blossoms are growing.
The fruit trees look good! The columnar apple trees are pretty loaded. We probably should have thinned them a bit as I think we’ll have some drop as they grow. We’ll see what happens.
The quince tree is also fairly loaded. Last year, we had 13 quince. This year, I think there about 50. We probably should have thinned the fruit. This tree is still young, and I think we may need to prop up branches as the fruit ripens.
Not pictured, we added an espaliered pear tree which has 3 different types of pears on it.
The stuff in the side garden that actually grew is doing well. I harvested 5 whole pea pods from the ONE pea plant that grew.
I thinned out some beets and transplanted what I took out. So far, most of what I thinned is growing where I replanted it. They’re behind the rest so I may be able to still have some beets last into the fall. I was able to harvest two of the golden beets yesterday.
Of the two melons I got from a friend, one died and the other is growing slowly but is growing.
The spaghetti squash that grew is finally getting bigger and has found the trellis and working its way upward. Hopefully I’ll start to see some blossoms on that soon.
(Ignore all the weeds – we tend to pull them and then throw them in a pile in this area.)
Again, if we had to rely on what I am able to grow in the garden, we’d starve. But, we’re learning and will keep trying and keep adjusting what we use and add in the soil to help things grow better.
Total harvest from the backyard so far this year – ~31 pounds