Where is the Summer going?????

July arrived bringing hot, humid and dry weather.  Thankfully we have water barrels that allow us to water the vegetables and flowers. We are slowly working on adding more perennials to our property in order to attract more pollinators. 

Last year we sprayed a mixture of vinegar, Epsom salts and Dawn on the grass at the north end of our yard.  We mulched it and began planting flowering shrubs and perennials.  We will continue to add six or seven plants each year until we have a nice garden to attract bees and butterflies.

Mid July and the three Zucchini plants are doing well.  Remember the Butternut squash in the high bed?  At the right side of this photo you can see the Butternut squash has grown over the sides of the garden bed and is rapidly covering the walkway.

We have never had good luck with tomatoes until we learned a few secrets.  Now the plants are growing so well that we may have them too close together.  The tomatoes this year count as both a success and an error.

The cucumbers are also having a difficult time staying in their part of the four by eight foot bed.  They even grew over the onions planted at the right end of the bed.

These cucumbers were picked this morning.  In another few days, there will be more. My next chore will be to make cucumber salad and freeze it.  That favorite salad my grandmother made with cucumbers, onions, vinegar, sugar, water and salt and pepper can be frozen. That was one of my trials last season.  The cucumbers stay almost as crisp as fresh salad but they do become a little more translucent.  Small price to pay for cucumber salad all winter without having to buy any cucumbers from the grocery store.

July 16th and the green bean plants have blossoms and a few tiny beans starting to grow.  This week we will plant green beans in two more garden beds for a later crop.  Terry thinks a person can't have too many green beans.