Garden Journal: Mid-month Update From the Laughing Dragon Garden!

in #hive-140635last year

We are closing in on true midsummer in our little corner of the world. Since today is the 15th of July it's time for another gardening update from The Laughing Dragon Garden!

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One of our amazing sunflowers. More about them, further down!

It has been very dry around here, and in spite of the fact that we live in the allegedly "rainy Pacific Northwest," we have started to water on a regular basis just to keep everything alive and thriving.

Rutabaga
The rutabaga bed

The rutabagas are continuing to thrive; they were thinned the second time and some of the tubers are now approaching 3 in in diameter.

The particular type we have can grow to be up to two pounds each and will be a nice fall vegetable. They supposedly keep growing until the first frost, but with our typically mild climate, who knows?

We're keeping a watchful eye on them, though, because the cabbage white butterflies do like the greenery, and if they lay eggs and the caterpillars start eating, they can decimate the tops on no time at all.

It's our first year to try rutabagas, so it'll be interesting to see how they turn out!

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Looking good, so far!

The leeks are slowly progressing, and are actually starting to resemble leeks. Until fairly recently they looked more like chives. It looks like they might need another thinning; so far the ones that were transplanted seem to have survived the ordeal pretty well!

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Leeks... becoming leeks!

Our potatoes are in various stages of readiness, with the plants actually inside the garden fence starting to look a bit "aged," perhaps because they were some of the first things we planted. Meanwhile the plants out in what we call "The Annex" are also doing well and quite a few of them are flowering. The ones inside the garden fence are mostly Yukon Golds, with the ones outside generally being red.

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Potato plants in our expansion "annex" garden

This is also the time of the year when we start looking up.

Our aging apricot tree is going to produce a somewhat meager harvest this year but we're grateful for anything we can get since apricots allegedly don't even grow very well in this part of the world.

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Ripening apricots

Meanwhile, it looks like we will have a decent Apple crop this year.

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We gave the apple trees a fairly good pruning over the winter, and had no great hopes for this year's crop.

Apples
These will become mostly red apples

However, they seem to have responded very well to their "Haircut."

These apples were already on the property when we moved here, and they were actually planted in the middle of the fenced area the previous owners used as a vegetable garden.

However, they were are bit "sprawling" and the main issue was that they created rather a lot of shade, somewhat limiting what we could grow in our fairly small space.

We contemplated taking them out completely, but decided to save them and we're glad we did!

They give wonderful apples for pies, for apple butter and we may even try to make some cider, one of these years! They generally are very well bearing, often giving us well over 100lbs of food!

As far as other fruit goes, strawberry season — at least the first "session" — is now pretty much done and over with.

Strawberry
A prize berry from this year's harvest!

Most of the berries we ate fresh, but there were also enough to make some delicious jam!

However, at least some of the plants we have are allegedly ever-bearing and I am trying a new strategy of trimming the leaves back now (rather than in the fall/winter) and thereby inducing additional "mini seasons" throughout the summer and early fall.

Haven't tried this approach before, so we'll see how it goes.

So far it seems to be working, as there are quite a few blooms to be seen on some of the plants. It would be lovely if it worked out!

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New strawberry blooms

For the first time since we moved here, this year we are being treated to more than just a tiny handful of delicious black raspberries! They're actually fairly small fruits, and I think they're semi wild but they are certainly wonderful tasting!

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Black raspberries... yum!

The blackberries — which are actually our "domesticated" but still very invasive and spiky Himalayan blackberries which @denmarkguy has done his best to tame — are now a mass of flowers and I am hopeful they will give us a bumper crop of blackberries in a month or so.

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Blackberries flowering...

My goal is to have enough that we can make wine with them this year!

I mildly tolerate having them — the thorns are truly nasty, and they self-seed EVERYwhere — but do like the end result. It's @denmarkguy's job to keep them harnessed!

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Of course, there are also lots of wildflowers because we like to keep it pretty! We have pretty limited space, but there is always room for what we call "Sarah's Meadow!"

Sunflower
Our 8-foot "mutant" sunflower!

Speaking of flowers, one of the most ridiculous things we have in the garden is the deep rust-red sunflower that you saw in the thumbnail picture, and at the top of this post.

It is now approaching eight feet tall which is perhaps not so unusual for a normal giant sunflower, but... this particular species allegedly seldom grows beyond three to four feet!

In the photo at right, you can sort of make out two smaller ones, growing next to it. That's evidently the "normal" size.

I guess it's a mutant of some sort, because it is also setting five flowers at top! We love it though!

Most of our sunflowers actually end up being "volunteers," and it seems like every year we end up with one particular plant that's just ridiculously tall. Some years ago, we grew a regular yellow sunflower that rose to near 15 feet (4.5 meters or so) and was quite the talk of the neighborhood.

When we harvested the seed head, it was almost 18 inches (46cm) across!

Tomato Plants
Tomato plants, busy becoming a forest!

The 2023 version of what we like to call the "Mater Forest" is coming along nicely.

It took a while for the plants to get going because it was cold in the late spring and early summer but now they're getting going one and setting lots of flowers and fruits.

We expect it will be a somewhat late harvest this year due to the slow growth and early lack of sun, but we're keeping our fingers crossed!

One of them (inadvertently) turns out to be a Roma tomato plant which wasn't intentional and we didn't really notice until some of the fruits showed up oblong, but we're quite happy to have it.

I wonder how much harvest we will get from these six plants? The previous record for this small bed was in excess of 120 pounds (almost 55kg)!

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These will become giant "beefsteak" tomatoes

Meanwhile, the first "round" of lettuce greens, arugula and spinach have been pulled up, and the second round is now starting to sprout and hopefully will give us some nice fresh greens within a couple of weeks.

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The second "season" of arugula, getting going!

The snow peas are one of our favorite things and they are starting to do quite well with lots of new flowers and lots of crispy delicious pods.

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Snow peas in bloom

Meanwhile, our climbing beans are doing well and doing what they always do, climbing out of control!

Beans
We call it the "bean-yard" (as opposed to vinyard)

I expect they will eventually keep climbing and cover the whole roof of what used to be the chicken pen and they're setting flowers and little beans already.

These particular beans — which come from heirloom seeds that are self-harvested and about 7-8 years old now — are among the most productive plants we have. It's not unusual that we can harvest 8-10 pounds of beans, three or four times... and have plenty to eat-as-we-go.

We like them because they freeze well, and they are also quite good to pickle!

This year we are looking for a good brine recipe that will produce a sweet-hot flavor, similar to our favorite "Wickles" pickles you can get from the grocery stores. Sometimes...

What's also cool about our Beanyard is that it is quite vertical so we can get a lot of yield out of our fairly limited space. This is an urban (or maybe suburban) homestead, after all!

Speaking of pickling, the herb garden is going quite well, although we are reaching that point in the season where everything is getting pretty "tall and leggy."

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The dill is setting flower, heralding the start of pickling season!

And that's about it, for this rather lengthy update! This post was not created by me alone, though... I was "supervised" by Herman, our resident male quail, who stands guard on the top of the fence.

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Herman and Mrs. Herman have a flock of some 15 babies (a guess... it might be more!) roaming the area, and sometimes they roost on the roof of the Beanyard. Never a dull moment around here!

Thanks for visiting! Comments are always welcome!

(All images are my own; some of these by @denmarkguy!)
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How cool, a resident quail! Your gardens are doing wonderfully! You guys don't have your normal rain there, and right now as I type we are in another monsoon, coming down in torrents and supposed to for the rest of the day. I'm in Western Mass and so far, knock wood, am essentially unaffected by the 12" of rain or so we've gotten in the last 3 weeks.

So glad you're doing well, stay safe! I wouldn't mind some of that rain over here. We were supposed to have some in the predawn hours today, but heavy sigh ... I think I see @denmarkguy heading out to water now.
You watch, now it WILL rain.
Or wait, that only happens if you wash the car, right? LOL!

thank you so much for sharing your awesome garden! some of those plants are not growing in my country (Indonesia)

But you get those amazing butterflies ... not to mention better fruit. Thank goodness for international transport of yummy foods!

You have a connection with a quail!! How awesome. They always seem so skittish whenever I see them in the wild.

Lovely produce!

Each one of the birds that tend to show up around here are a sort of reminder to send good vibes out to a particular person. Quail are for @denmarkguy and his beloved Aunty Ulla. She's "gone" now, but on her birthday several years ago a group of quail huddled together on the back patio right next to our sliding glass door. They've been coming ever since. So we call them "Ulla Birds". She was amazing at finding solutions for things we call "Household Hacks" these days.

Ulla Birds!!!!! 😍 How wonderful and sweet!

That's one handsome quail! Much more fancy looking than the ones we get around here.

I had to look up what a rutabaga was. I've heard the name used before, but it turns out it's what we know as turnips. That and leeks are not vegetables I'm fond of, but I have to admit they look pretty good growing in your garden. Very healthy indeed.

I miss my apricot tree, seeing your beauties ripening. 😢

I'll tell the "Herman" family (the quail) you send your best! 😁
I honestly wish we could grow carrots as well as the rutabaga/turnips we're churning out, but beets didn't do well here either.
The apricot tree is so tired, but she's got a few more years left in her I think. Thanks for reading!

You have a nice garden with full of flowers and edibles. I envy you! I enjoyed your garden tour on Hive :) Keep on gardening 💪

Absolutely stunning photos! I love the first one of the unusual sunflower. I must source some!

I LOVE rutabaga, or swede as I know it. Roast swede is so divine.

That sunflower is called "Midnight Rouge" and I found several places online after I found my original source on etsy.
... and yeahhhhh ... I'm truly looking forward to roasted rutabaga! They store so nicely through the winter. Yum.

Your photos looks so beautiful, I love it, keep posting like this

I should thank you for sharing your plants in this community. This is my first time seeing another color of a sunflower. I have only seen the yellow ones.

Aren't they amazing?! I couldn't believe how beautiful they were when I saw them in a seed catalog online at etsy. I had to buy them and see for myself. They're called Midnight Rouge. Because they are only supposed to grow to be about three or four feet tall, I sent a couple of pictures to the people I originally purchased the seeds from, and they thought we were photoshopping them to look taller. So then we sent a short video. They were blown away! We don't know what it is about our beloved little space ... must be all the love. 😍