I need to pull out the last of the winter crops and fill in with new plants that don't mind being planted in July. I have a bunch of carrots I didn't harvest soon enough and they've gone to bloom, but they're so pretty I don't have the heart to tear them all out. I harvested my first bush beans the other day, they were quite delicious. The tomatoes are growing well and the first fruits on the sun cherry are starting to color up.

Biggest decision I've made is that my first three raised beds are going to have to be torn out and replaced with something better. I'm thinking of doing a variation on the traditional four bed and central feature potager, with four 'L' shaped beds that enclose a space large enough for an herb spiral.

Be careful what you put in your herb spiral! When I first grew herbs, I didn't research what got to what size! Some of them just took over the 3x3 box I had them in.
I ripped everything out about 5 years ago and went with a container herb garden, but I still have oregano and lemon verbena taking over that bed! Nancy

congrats nancy!

I'm just trying to keep things alive at the moment....

hey there!
this forum is a bit quiet at the moment?!
I have been pruning some overly zealous cardinal climber vine from the obelisks in the garden. I also have been sowing a my last crops of beets, carrots, cilantro, and lettuce before it gets too cold. I am amazed every year at at how everything fills by this time of the summer!! sorry the photo is a bit dark!!

i've also been chasing down squash bugs to protect my jarrahdale squash!! they are tough things to get control of!

This year a lot of the fruits in my home orchard are reaching bearing age so I've been busy harvesting peaches, plums, apples, and grapes, and making more pies and cobblers than I usually do in a year. For the health of myself and my family I give most of them away, I find that if you give people fruit you can't be sure that it will be eaten, but if you give them a home made pie it's pretty much guaranteed to not go to waste.

The Pink Pearl apple tree not only had a bumper crop, the apples had the deepest colored flesh I've ever gotten.

I recently harvested the last of the stone fruits and pink apples for the year, so now the attention has turned to the grapes (I made my first ever Concord grape pie last night, quite unique and delicious) and the green beans and tomatoes. I really want to get some irrigation in next year, as well as gravel to keep down the weeds in the paths. I've been too busy harvesting and watering to keep things weeded enough to be fit for photos.

Well, my raised up beds apparently had the wrong type of soil, so pretty much everything in them failed. I'll have to change the soil for next year. The in ground raised beds all did fine, though. Not as many tomatoes as usual. Probably cause my DH poured in at least twice as much fertilzer as he should have! The plants were fery large and green, though! LOL
We have a bumper crop of weeds! Nancy

later in the summer/fall - i am going to add low-level lighting

i have also powder coated the french edgers and repainted the wooden boxes

when this is completed i will add photos

mr toad