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After all the rain we had in Seattle last week, I was lulled into thinking summer was over. Today’s sunny warmth reminded me that its only the last of July! We still need to get through the rest of our drought cycle. I went out & realized my container gardens were dry, so I watered those. Then I tested soil moisture levels in my garden beds with the tried & true method of digging with my fingers. Sure enough, the top few inches are dried out again. Its somewhat moist below, but by tomorrow I need to start running irrigation again to keep those levels up. Nothing is crashed & my vegies are going gang-busters.

I did remove the one squash with tell-tale virus symptoms. It was still producing fruit, but its neighbors are healthy & I didn’t want to lose those! My delicata squash & cucumbers are starting to produce female flowers with tiny fruits below. Yay! I hope we get lots of them! My “bush beans” are still looking like they want to be climbers, but still no climbing tendencies. Maybe they’re just going to be leggy/tall bushes. We’ll see. Small buds are forming!

I still have chard. So far none has gone to seed. I moved them into a shadier location as they had been in full sun. I’m hoping this will keep them going even longer.

My poor sad peach really is going to have to go. Yeah…yeah, I’ve been saying that for a couple of years now. The only thing that’s keeping it in the ground is that I don’t want to take on another bed renovation until I finish the one that’s already underway. Why does my peach need to go? Well, it has the wrong fuzz — yeah, brown rot has moved into the fruit & its plain gross. Plus, its attracting rats. Yuck! If I pick the fruit before its fully ripe, I can beat the brown rot in some cases. Its a bummer. I so badly wanted a peach & it was so happy in its location! Any votes? I’m thinking Stewartia in its place!?

Did pull a few weeds today, but have some hip injury issues I’m working on, so am under strict directions to take it easy, so didn’t do much there.

Did cut some tall white garden phlox and purple glads for a dining room table arrangement. Several phlox stalks had fallen over in the rain, so I just had  to cut them to open up the pathway . I adore this phlox & apologize that I don’t know the cultivar. It has the most delicious fragrance. I highly recommend every garden have some & they’re happily divided by their second season. Mine will be followed by Monkshood this fall, which will keep the Anna’s hummingbirds in my garden into early winter…hopefully getting them to stick around until my winterblooming Witch hazels kick in just before the end of December!

Oh one more note. I just adore The Herbal Kitchen Cookbook. There is a recipe for Spicy Lemon Verbena meatballs in it that is to die for — probably literally with all the fat. Still, in this recipe Jerry Traunfeld talks about his difficulties cultivating Lemon Grass in Seattle. I’m giving it a shot this year & am having success. I don’t expect it will winter over, but its a beautiful culinary plant to mix into an herb & vegetable patch. It adds that grassy texture that is often missing in our vegie gardens. If you can get your hands on it, I recommend giving it a shot. (I also adore Lemon Verbena, so don’t forget that one. Its usually an annual in my garden, but its worth replanting year after year!) Jerry, if you’re reading, I was low on Lemon Verbena so added some of my Lemon Grass to the meatball recipe & they were great!

This entry was posted on Friday, July 27th, 2007 at 4:45 pm and is filed under Food, Gardening, Horticulture, Watering, cookbooks, cooking. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.