July Update: Need a Good Garden Worker?

It’s hot hot hot, but then, you knew that.  My lettuce is a little bitter about the heat, but everything else is loving it.

Good Garden Helpers

Despite the heat I got a lot done this week. Mostly that was because I hired two good garden helpers to come help me catch up with the weeds. Dallin and Derek, two teenage brothers from church came over and weeded, tied tomatoes plants and mowed the lawn on Monday and Tuesday morning.

They’re both terrific workers, polite and friendly.  If you need someone to help you catch up in your garden or mow your lawn let me know and I’ll give you their phone number. They live in Coon Rapids and would be happy to travel any reasonable distance to come help you

Garden Updates

The tomatoes are flowering like crazy, and there are lots of green fruits already. Some of the sweet-millions are already full sized, so maybe I’ll have tomatoes to eat within a week or two.

Green tomatoes

The pole beans want more height than we’re giving them. They’re trying to climb each other to get higher now.

Greedy Green Beans

You can’t see it in the picture, but we planted pole beans against he fence and bush beans in front of them and it has worked out really well. The bush beans are already producing! These are a little on the small side, but last year they got to the point where we couldn’t quite keep up, so I didn’t feel bad picking them small.

Snack time!

The carrots are doing well enough. They are mostly in Ryan’s garden, and he knows it. He came in from playing yesterday, very excited with a fist full of carrots.

Kids like carrots!

The Sweet Banana Peppers are doing really well. We’ve easily eaten 8 of them, and there are lots of little ones on the plants too. Most of the other pepper plants are flowering, so hopefully they’ll catch up soon too.

Sweet Banana Peppers

The only other pepper plant that has produced anything is this little one.  The plant is only a foot tall, the stems and leaves have streaks and tinges of purple. The peppers are the size of a blueberry and very flavorful with a mild spiciness to them (less than a Jalapeño). Since it came from the Hot Pepper Mix from Totally Tomatoes, I don’t know what kind it is for sure. I believe that it is “Pretty Purple Pepper”, but it might be something else. Either way, they’re good.

Pretty Purple Pepper?

Lastly, this is the first squash that I noticed. I believe it is a spaghetti squash. It was a volunteer which grew out of some mulch I planted around our newest grape vine. I have since discovered two other squash which are slightly larger than this one hidden in a corner of the fence behind the squash leaves. The other squash are buttercup squash.

Spaghetti Squash?

No photos for these, but we have been eating chives and green onions, and the little bit of cilantro that hasn’t gone to seed. The raspberries keep turning red and the strawberries are mostly done. The spinach has all gone to seed and I’m just waiting for it to dry a bit before collecting the seeds.

Happy gardening!