Garden Update

The apricots are starting to turn.  There aren't very many of them this year, so we're watching them closely to make sure we get them all.

The artichoke plant is getting big.  No signs of artichokes yet, but we're ready.

The tomato plants (most of them anyway) have finally started growing.  They sat and did nothing for quite awhile.  There are even little green tomatoes on most of them.

The peppers are just now starting to get bigger.  They're still pretty small.  We haven't had a really good pepper crop in a few years, so hopefully these do better.

The peas are starting to die back, and I need to pull them out so that these sad little cucumber plants can have the trellis (and get a little more sun).

My edamame experiment is going well.  No blossoms yet, but the plants look good.

I picked and ate ONE blackcap.  It was the only one ripe.  The rest are getting close (please let them ripen BEFORE we leave to go camping next week!).  We're going to eat them and put the rest in the freezer for smoothies and ice cream and stuff.  The blackcaps are the healthiest they've been in as long as I can remember.  I think it's partly due to the wet spring, me remembering to water them regularly, and the bees.  

This is the weeded half of the corn.  The half to the left of the photo isn't weeded and looks, well, less nice.  You can also see the squash/pumpkin plants.  I put these around the perimeter in hopes that the prickly vines would deter critters and varmints (apparently critters and varmints are not the same thing- the things you learn from netflix).  

The beans.  They just started to flower yesterday.  Bean canning will be in the near future.  We did so many last year (I picked and picked in hopes of going into labor on my own- so glad it's this year and not last year...) that we still have a couple of pints left.

The ladies are enjoying the peace and quiet now that the meat birds are gone.  We kept six hens.  They haven't started laying yet, but they should, any day.