End of June garden update

My tomato plants have gone gangbusters! My volunteer is indeed a paste tomato. It's not Amish paste but I don't recall exactly what it is - but it has full size tom's on it, just ready to ripen. I have many many Sungolds and a few Odorikos. The rest of the plants are doing well and have blooms, but no fruit yet. My zukes are producing enough for 2-3 meals a week. I have to remember to harvest today and pick my pattypans as well or else they'll get away from me. I've been meaning to pick them on Sunday and am now 4 days late! I'm scared to look. I harvested a big bowl of beans the other day and we had them for dinner with some freshly cooked bacon chunks - delicious! I need to remember to let a few go to see so I can save them for next year.

Daturas

Two weeks ago at D's house for Women's Work Day, we (meaning J) did a MAJOR pruning of D's datura tree. The frangrance of these flowers is awesome and the flowers are large and beautiful. I'm told they could be a member of the tomato family so I took home several cuttings and stuck them in water to root. Granted, I was supposed to start them in a bucket of wet sand but I got busy and never got the bucket or sand setup. So far, the roots are developing in the water and I change the water every few days.

The one thing that I didn't expect was the flower that was still stuck to one of the cuttings - it bloomed! And it smells fabulous! It took me some time to figure out what was making my kitchen smell so sweet and lovely but when I saw the flower peeking out from behind the blinds, I remembered - and it made me smile. I'll check the roots and change the water again today, and hopefully they will ready to be planted soon.

&%$^#*

Friday I was thinking that I needed to harvest my last 2 cabbages. I went out and checked; everyone was happy and copascetic. Saturday morning I went out again only to find this:

These last two pictures show my BlueLake bush beans. I was pleasantly surprised, right after I was totally pissed off about my cabbage, to find that I have a whole lotta beans coming in. I need to watch them least they get away from me and grow too big to harvest. Yippee!!

(If anyone can tell me how to get my text out from beside my pictures, I'd appreciate it... this is not a WYSIWYG editor and it's frustrating as it doesn't really accept returns or line breaks - thanks!)

It's June already...

Last week, when it was still May, we had Ladies Work Day at my place. D had provided me with 2 bags of tubing and connectors for a drip system that she no longer needed as well as a faucet timer. When J and I took the tubing out of the bag, I noticed that most of them were still strung together and... wait... can it be? Why, yes, it's exactly the same length as my garden! We laid out the little spider web of tubing and started to modify it slightly to match my garden perfectly. By lunchtime we were as done as we could be without heading to the hardware store, so off we went to OSH.
We picked up the pieces we needed to finish the drip system and grabbed lunch at our favorite El Salvadorian place. Pupusas = yummy! Within an hour of returning home, the drip system was in place, tested, and complete - and it was only 2:30. Um, we've never been done so early before. We usually work each other like slaves until we either 1) can't move or 2) it's too dark to see. So, now what? It was too early for our typical celebratory wine, so we just had water and sat out back under the apple tree talking until we were ready to fall asleep, which only took about 45 minutes.
Tomorrow, drip systems at D's house!