Lush

Yes, things are lush, just they way I like them. Our cool wet spring became a hot, muggy summer.... turning Wisconsin into a temporary tropical jungle. This is the basil of my dreams - all the neighbors have been given free reign to pick as much as they want and still there's more than I can use. Heavenly.

In the side yard.....

Matt's Wild Cherry Tomatoes - a pretty little heirloom cherry that's big on flavor. They are ripening fast!

These are the wedding coleslaw cabbages, finally starting to form heads.

Teddy Bear Sunflowers, taller than me and just starting to form buds. I'm really hoping that there will be some flowers still in decent shape for the wedding in October. Time will tell.

The spring cilantro is gone, and Lacinato kale planted in it's place. I'll eat some of it, but mostly it will be greenery in the wedding flower arrangements.

The peas and lettuce of spring are gone, making way for the wedding collards. I planted these in late July 95 degree heat and had some doubt that they would germinate. They came through and are growing fast.

Zinnias, Statice, Strawflowers, Amaranth, yellow onions.... everything is growing so fast.

I've started experimenting with drying flowers. The strawflowers and statice are easy - those get hung upside down in the garage. The zinnias and asters are in the Tupperware and stainless bowl with silica gel. I'll post about this process later - needless to say I think I'll get at least some usable dried flowers for the wedding.

I pulled the garlic from the Main Street garden a few weeks back and it's been curing in the garage. Some day this week I'll cut the heads off and store them.

The McCormick "Three Sisters" Garden:

Things are looking good! The corn is literally 8 feet tall! The pumpkins are growing quickly and flowering. A few of them were infested with squash vine borers, a horrible white worm that eats its way into the base of the vines and slowly kills the plant.

The best method for control that I could find was to cut the vines open with a razor blade, take the worms out, and cover the wounded vines with damp soil and hope that they heal. I was dubious, but also desperate (these are the pie pumpkins for our wedding cake!), so I gave it a shot. Lo and behold, most of them survived their surgery! The fat white larvae were disgusting, especially when squished, but it was satisfying work and even if I lose a few pumpkin plants I can be content that I saved most of them.

The corn is incredible. It seems like overnight it went from 5 feet to 8 feet tall. According to the seed company, it can get up to 15 feet! It's Cherokee white flour corn... I can't wait to eat the corn bread!

It seems to be anchored pretty well. I worry about it blowing over in a high wind, but so far so good.

There are even a few tassels starting to show!

This is a tease pumpkin. It's growing on the wrong side of the fence and the other side of the fruit has been chewed pretty badly by some sort of rodent. It sure looks nice in this picture though.

Baby Black Futsu Pumpkin.

Baby Winter Luxury Pie Pumpkin. In just two months this will (hopefully) be the base of a whipped cream frosted pumpkin wedding cake!

I don't have any pictures of the Main Street Garden, but I thought I'd share a recent haul from that plot. There are green beans, carrots, beets, cucumbers, tomatoes, zucchini, eggplant, peppers.... life just doesn't get any better than this.

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