We just ate a couple of tasty pears, fresh off the tree.  We left 2 that the birds had pecked.

I am not sure if the ones we are were Kieffer or Moonglow, or both, but the ones that we picked that are not ripe are Bartlett. I wonder if I should have left them on the tree, but they were not firmly attached to the tree. We had 18 baby pears, I thinned them out by about half.  
 
There is  a flush of raspberries, but I think the rain has not been good for them.

We are having crazy weather for August. Cool and wet. 

My tomatoes have been a disappointment. Bell Peppers and Okra not as good as usual, but the eggplants are doing well. I am just not  in the mood to eat them. 

I just harvested a bunch of Mister Lincoln rose petals. Washed and dried them and put them in the freezer. I am going to try to root some more cuttings. I love that rose!

My leeks were a disaster. I wonder if I should have harvested them a long time ago. They never got big.

Wonder what my potatoes are doing...they never bloomed, vines never died back. Maybe I will dig them up and replant and maybe eat some as "new potatoes"...I will look up info about them first.

I have had an especially bad year health wise and am having a hard time keeping up with the garden, and everything else.

(Well, this got saved to draft rather than being published, but at least I know it is "late July 2012")


I am delighted to see that one of 6 "Mr Lincoln" hybrid tea rose cuttings has rooted and is showing new growth at top! I will be trying to start more from prunings. I loved how red and fragrant they made some Rose/Peony jam we made a couple of months ago. I will try to get at least 3 Mr. Lincoln bushes and next year I want to buy a 'cabbage rose"---the most fragrant I can find, and have several.

I just cut up a Sugar Baby watermelon that I got from the Farmer's Market for $6. I should never buy anything but Seedless Sugar Baby watermelons (or the yellow ones) because regular watermelons don't taste good to me. I just read that watermelon rind was like a natural "Viagra" LOL. Well, I guess that is good to know. I am making "Watermelon Candies" http://mjskitchen.com/2012/09/watermelon-rind-candies/ and I increased the recipe by 1/2 and used 1 lime and 1/2 lemon juice and omitted the star anise. 

What a huge waste when you throw watermelon away, except that my worms love it!

I see some volunteer kale plants coming up. My parsley from last year has gone to seed. I planted some butterfly weed and Shasta Daisy that I started last year from seed, and they bloomed this year.  I really want some echinacea/purple coneflower.  I wonder if I have some seeds for it.

My Triple Crown Blackberries have done so well.  I wish I had more. My blueberries are doing really well, too. My raspberries are taller than me and are looking like they are about to bloom for the second time this year. I don't know why that is.They are Heritage and Logan....I don't know which is which, but they are going crazy...I hate to cut them back or mow them down.

I picked 4 pears off the tree on Tuesday. This is Saturday.  I have no idea when they are supposed to be picked. They were kind of small. I wonder if they would have been bigger if I had thinned them more. I did thin a bunch of them. We only planted this last year.  I think the ones I picked were Keiffer and Bartlett. There is supposed to be a "Moonglow" pear grafted in somewhere.

My tomatoes are not doing too well.  They never do. I wonder if I don't fertilize them enough.  I have picked several bell peppers (I never fail with bell peppers) and Ichiban eggplant. I also got some "Millionaire" eggplant plants when they were half price at the farmers market. They are bearing now.

My potatoes were not taken very good care of.  I did not hill them up. they are in grow bags. I think I have Red, blue, and yellow ones again. The plants have not flowered, but they are still alive. I had several "volunteer" potato plants come up from last year.  
Our Sugar snap peas did very well.  I meant to plant Tendergreen cucumber seeds when the peas were on their last leg, but I have misplaced my seeds.

I bought some Clemson Spineless okra plants and have harvested some from them.

For fall, I definitely want to plant more Kale and maybe some other greens.

My Leeks didn't do so well.  My onions from plants I started from seeds last year (along with the leeks) did very well. I definitely want to grow my own onion starts again.  I broke the "scapes" off the leeks and I kept hoping they would get big and fat. Maybe they don't have enough fertilizer? They just looked pretty "wimpy"  

I wish I had grown a lot of basil from seed. Maybe next year.

My freezer seems to be having some issues.  I probably should dust the coils or something.I sure can't afford a new freezer. I wonder about drying blueberries, but we have been eating them fresh, in smoothies, and in pie.  I would like more blueberry plants, too. 

I have several pots of flowers I need to get into the ground.  

I bought a "therese bugnet" rugosa rose for $3 or so at Big Lots. It is alive. The one I bought last year or some time back did not live.

I wish I had a good kind of sweet mint. I wish I had plenty of parsley. I am trying to encourage the parsley seeds that have dropped from the plants that went to seed this year. 

I was so sick January to May. I have not had time to catch up on everything.

Strangely, my strawberries didn't do so well this year.  I really think last year we had squirrels or rabbits or birds eating the berries, especially my blackberries. It was very frustrating to see them disappear as soon as they were ripe enough to pick.

I want to plant some rainbow mix carrots and I need to rejuvenate the soil with some fertilizer and compost. 

I have one rain barrel set up, but I want to set up another one.

I wish I had a friend with horses or cows or rabbits or chickens so I could use the manure.  I should be taking advantage of the free coffee grounds from Starbucks....it is supposedly similar to manure. I have my regular compost and my worm compost. I hope next year I will produce more compost.  You really have to put some effort in it to have good and abundant compost.