Tuesday, August 13, 2013

Late Summer Garden Update

I experimented with planting herbs in my porch pots this year.  It was very successful, although the purple basil took over, the creeping thyme died, and the lovage was very stressed by the July heat.  I love having thyme and summer savory available and looking so pretty.  I have yet to use the fresh rosemary; at first, I wondered why, because I adore rosemary, but then I realized it is more of a winter flavor to me. I'm hoping to overwinter it inside.



 
 


My baby basil plants are doing great.



The green beans in the raised bed were puny.  I ripped them out and started planting spinach in one and two week successions.  I have never done succession plantings before and I'm so proud!  I put reminders on my online calendar so I don't forget.

I am also experimenting with parsnips and beets beside some of my flowers; my husband warned me that they are especially susceptible to the juglon poison from our black walnut tree, so I don't know if it will work.  I do want to fill a big pot with soil and try growing some root vegetables on the front porch in our southern exposure, away from the wicked black walnut.

We got a pumpkin volunteer from somewhere (Halloween pumpkins?  I don't know) and it is romping over the fence and setting on adorable pumpkins.  Will they be big or miniature?  Who knows!



We had several volunteer tomato plants this year, and a volunteer pepper plant.  I moved the pepper plant out of the tomato jungle and I hope it will produce some peppers soon; it hasn't even flowered yet.  Some of our tomato plants are terribly wilted due to some mysterious blight, yet they are green and producing, so I just wince when I look at them and let them go.


 
How's your green thumb this summer?
 


6 comments:

jenny_o said...

Both of my parents have green thumbs. Mine is black, or purple, or maybe chartreuse. All I know is I can't grow things. And even if I were to try (again) we have deer in our town and I think we'd have to build a fence as well as a garden.

But I love to see other people's gardens, and I sure like to eat vegetables :)

Unknown said...

Love the last picture ; ) Your plants look great!!! Love your pots - so full and lush. You could spray the tomatoes with a milk/water solution with bit of dishsoap (helps make liquid stick to the leaves) that may help your tomatoes. Spray in the hot dry time of the day.

BLD in MT said...

Great gardening recap! Glad things are growing so well, more or less. We're having a rough year of tomatoes and peppers which makes me sad as they are my favorite, but we ate fresh basil pesto with mixed garden veg for dinner last night so things are still quite fine by me. We're going to try and overwinter our rosemary, too.

Meryl said...

Wow--looks like your garden is going well! Ours is slow this year, but we have basil and tomatoes, so no complaints. Would love to hear if you are successful in overwintering your rosemary. I never have any luck, but I'm horrid at keeping houseplants alive, in general.

Sew Blessed Maw [Judy] said...

Beautiful plants.. Love your last photo. Too cute.
Our garden has done extremely well this summer.. We have lots of rain in our area [really unusual for this time of year..but so happy for it]..

April's Homemaking said...

I enjoyed your garden update, it is always interesting to read about different gardens. I love parsnips, I have had no luck growing them though, they always get eaten by critters before I can harvest them. I do love experimenting with new veggies every year though, hope your parsnips turn out great. :)