in other garden news...

I'm sorry I am just not able to update the blog as regularly as before. I am trying to exercise more, and the time has to come from some where. I would prefer to cut out household chores, or breaking up fights between the girls, or cooking. However, blogging is where the time ends up coming from.
The okra is reaching for the stars. It is getting to the point where it is very hard to harvest. Too bad we don't have any tall people in this family.
We get about 10 pods a day, which is really more than enough okra for a family of 4! Luckily, I had an okra-loving friend visit on Monday and gave her a whole big bag so we had two okra free days. It's good stuff, but I am starting to run out of fresh and exciting okra ideas. Simmered okra, okra gomae, curried okra, okra pesto spaghetti, help?
The baby trees on the embankment are coming along nicely despite the occasional pumpkin vine attack.
Tomatoes in planters survived, barely, but are sad and pathetic. We get maybe two cherry tomatoes a week. All the ones in the ground rotted in the July rains.
Even sadder and more pathetic, but trying!
We have baby kinkans on our kinkan tree. They look like marble sized oranges and are eaten whole (except the seeds). We hope to have kinkans to harvest this winter!
Edamame plants are doing well.
Fall cucumbers are planted. The second generation of cucumbers have more or less fizzled out and we are going through cucumber withdrawal with only 2 or 3 a week. Okra just isn't the same...
And finally, cosmos on the embankment! Finally, after sowing seeds seeds and more seeds three plants have come up and two are doing really well.

garden July 11

We are leaving for the US tomorrow and so I want to have a basis of comparison for when we get back on August 18. I got about half of the spare tomatoes potted. I have lost all but three of the big tomato plants (2 Evergreens and a Cherokee Purple survive) to some sort of wilt, it might be the yasude eating the roots, but the roots look really strong. I don't know what it was.
Cherry tomatoes front left, edamame in the middle, a few remaining large tomatoes and some basil and green beans back right, shiso shiso everywhere on the right. The Black Plum are the strongest survivors of my tomatoes, unfortunately they have kind of a mealy texture and are really best for cooking. The sugar lumps are going strong and I still have two Reisentraubes which are the tastiest. I lost my original Sweet Orange II and Chadwicks Cherry but second generation plants are doing well.
A large shiso thicket front left, behind it are more cherry tomatoes, behind that (not visible) eggplant and peppers. Cucumbers back right, cosmos front right.
Watermelon in front, okra, zucchini (2 second generation plants not visible).
Two zucchinis, lots more shiso surrounding the carrot patch, and 3 surviving large tomato plants at the back

vegetables

Cinderella pumpkins are getting quite big. This photo was taken 3 days ago, and after all the rain it's even bigger now. How does one know if a pumpkin is ready to pick???Ants are very attracted to the okra flower buds. It doesn't seem to be doing much harm, but is curious.
I have chopped off the older sections of my two remaining zucchini that were no longer producing viable flowers. The new stems seem to be hanging in the through the rains, but I am not sure if we will ever get any more zucchini out of them or the three new plants.
My husband's method of protecting a baby watermelon from the floods.
Reisentraube tomatoes, I get one or two ripe ones a day now.
Black plum, also one or two a day.Edamame are coming along and you can see sweet orange II and Chadwick's cherry tomatoes in the background. Of the cherry tomatoes I think the sweet orange II and gold currant are the best. I am not sure about Reisentraube because my younger daughter eats them all.