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Wednesday, June 1, 2016

How Does Your Garden Grow?

This week has been rainy because there's been a tropical storm off the East Coast.  The rain has pulverized my petunias and some of the strawberries, but for the most part the garden has loved it.  In three days the blackberry bushes doubled in size.  One branch hangs over the garden wall.  I think it will be trimmed back.

I'm not sure if the petunias can
recover from all the rain, but I'll
try to save them.

This is the rose bush my daughter
gave me for Mother's Day last year.
I planted it near the strawberries
not realizing the berries would
reproduce so much.

I had to deadhead a lot of the geranium
plant, but this plant seems to like the
rain.


My monster blackberry plants.  The fence
is six feet tall and the plant is taller!


I dumped half a packet of cucumber seeds that were left from last year in a big pot thinking if I got three plants, I'd be happy.  Every seed planted has produced a plant.  When they get a bit larger I'll share them with my daughters.  I also found out that I could plant another bean plant in the pot.  I put in three seeds and hoped for one plant.  I now have three more plants from expired seeds.

Cucumber seedlings love the rain!
The large bean plant  I have been getting
three beans a day off of it.  I eat them raw.  Yum!


And that lettuce I planted that came from the refrigerator?  OM gosh!  I have a new lettuce plant that I've put on the bottom shelf of the planting table to keep it cooler.  I'm hoping to gather from it all season. 

I love when experiments show
results.  The wilted lettuce from
the refrigerator is doing great.

I've been harvesting quite a few strawberries this year.  A few have been over ripe so I had to pitch them back into the soil.  But, I've gotten a quart of them so far with lots more to come.  I can't prove I have gotten a quart because I keep eating them.  My intention was to make jam, but they are so good, I snack on them all day.  I did freeze half a quart so far, so it's not a total loss.  I'm thinking this year's jam will be mixed berry.  LOL

This is about half of yesterday's harvest.
The beans in the backgtound will
be gone this morning.

 
I love the garden!  Not the weeds, but I'll take care of them anyway.  Little by little as this body can bend and stretch.  What's in your garden this year?  I get a warm heart when I hear of your successes.

Stay safe.


7 comments:

  1. It's been years since we planted our blackberry bush, and although every year it has leafed out well, grown large and sent up suckers in the surrounding soil, we've never gotten many berries from it. This year it's exploding with berries. DS1 picked the first quart over the weekend, and there are many, many more ripening. It's funny (and a blessing), because DS2, who works at a local grocery store, brought home 5 quarts of organic blueberries over the weekend. He said they were the last 5 containers at $2 each, so he snagged them all! I haven't made jam in at least 3 years, but I think I'll be freezing berries to make some jam after summer.

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    Replies
    1. Wow! I'm so happy for you. Nothing like fresh from the garden!

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  2. So many happy moments in your garden! And great success. Your strawberries really look tempting. You are quite right to eat them straight away. You can make jam with any other fruits. As to beans, raw beans contain a toxic substance called phasin (sorry, I only know
    the word in German) I did take the liberty to send you a link about that. The growing of your refrigerator lettuce ist astonishing. Congratulations !

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    Replies
    1. Thanks for the article. It spoke of dried beans, but at the end said not to eat any bean raw. The article was helpful because I do have dried beans and had no idea they could present such complications.

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  3. I knew about the toxin many years ago but still snap the odd bean off my plants and munch on it. I am looking forward to picking straberries very soon.

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    Replies
    1. I' so tempted to follow your lead, but I'm in one of those compromised groups.

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  4. Angie I have eaten raw beans for years with no drama's. I know my German relatives talk about this but I've never had any problems with eating raw beans. Raw beans are delicious .

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