Pea Pickin' Peas

Although they've been outdone by the green beans, the Sugar Snap and Oregon Giant peas have also produced a pretty good crop this year.

Peas

They were succulent and tender, but now they're done for the year.

Sorcerer's Apprentice?

A couple of months ago, we noticed that a volunteer green bean plant was sprouting in the raised bed.  (See: Nobody Told Them ).

Sprouting

It's easy to lose track of green bean pods on the vine; one day it's a little pod too small to pick, and the next day it's three feet long and too tough to eat.  That's what it seems like, anyway.  And sometimes one of them gets missed and stays on the vine until it dries up and the seeds fall on the ground and sprout when the rains come, even though they're not supposed to want to germinate until the weather gets warmer.

Mature Plant

 So now the vine is fully mature and producing green beans.  Lots and lots of green beans.  Every day, more beans.

One of Many

We're still working on all the green beans Cindy picked and froze last summer, and probably some from the summer before that.  The plant is not only showing no signs of slowing down its production, but seems to be going into overdrive.

Lots and Lots of Beans

It's a good thing we like green beans.

Not Quite As Successful As We Hoped

Unfortunately, that's the verdict on this year's effort at grafting heirloom tomato plants to tomato root stock.

Cindy started the seeds several weeks ago, transporting them from the small greenhouse out behind the garage to inside the garage at night.  When the plants were big enough, she began the process of grafting them.

Setting Up For the Operation

First she matches up tomato and root plant with stems that are approximately the same width, then slices off the top of one tomato and one root plant; she keeps the tomato top and discards the top of the root plant.  She also cuts off most of the leaves of the tomato top so that the plant will put most of its energy into healing the graft instead of producing more leaves.

Then she makes the grafting cuts with a razor blade in both stems and clips both halves together.

Trimming the Tops

Grafted Plants

The plants go into a dark space overnight with a plastic bin over the top of the tray to keep the humidity up and the plants moist.

Humid Environment

Inspected By Miss Mia

After that they go into dim light in the garage for a couple of days and continue to grow.

At least that was the plan.

After a couple of days, all but one of the plants had keeled over and it was clear they had not survived.

Lone Survivor

And the winner is.... Rose de Berne on Estamino root stock.

Fortunately, Cindy still has quite a few ungrafted tomato plants, so it doesn't all depend on this one plant and we should still have plenty of tomatoes this summer.

All Choked Up

Sorry, couldn't resist that title.  Yes, it's about artichokes.

We've tried to grow artichokes before with limited success.  Cindy planted another one this year although she was afraid that our climate didn't have enough "chill hours" for the plant to flower, but the plant proved her wrong and has produced six buds so far.

Artichoke Flowers

Is this not a thing of beauty?

And it was even better for lunch.

Good-bye To Cousin Itt

Cindy planted an ornamental grass plant in a container next to the garage door  a couple of years ago.

It became pretty bushy and I started calling it "Cousin Itt" because it reminded me of the character in the Addams Family.

Cousin Itt flourished for a while, but unfortunately began to dry out and shrivel up recently, so Cindy pulled it out and replaced it with some new blueberry plants.

That's fine with me; neither we nor the bees eat the ornamental grasses, but we do like blueberries.

"Hold This....Again"

Our blueberry bushes are currently loaded with blossoms and unripened berries.  That makes the El Nino storm we are told will arrive tomorrow a matter of concern; we don't want to lose those berries.

So Cindy, a former Girl Scout, was prepared to take measures to protect them from a hard rain by putting a cover of shade cloth over the bed by clipping it to some wire frames she had installed a couple of months ago.  We pulled the cloth over the frame and it worked beautifully.

I think it should work as long as the wind doesn't get too bad; there are certainly enough clothes pins securing the cloth to the wire frame.

The Color Purple

Purple is the color that predominates in our garden at this time of year.  I don't think the iris have looked any better, although it turns out that they are probably doing so well because of an irrigation malfunction.  When Cindy checked the drip irrigation systems she discovered that one line was getting no water and the irises were getting lots of it.  No wonder they were happy.

Iris

The lavender is also in full flower at this time of year and the bees love it.

Lavender

Lavender Flower

I'm Not Sure What This Is, But It's Pretty

And a few other colors, as well.

The only drawback to this climate is that lilacs generally don't do well here because there aren't enough chill hours.