Late July Update

Well, it's been just over three weeks for my gooseberry cuttings, and there was a 50% success rate, which I'm perfectly happy with.  There is evidence of good rooting, and new growth.

The blueberry cuttings are starting to look a bit questionable, but I'll keep watching and watering.  The lavender and hydrangea cuttings seem much happier. I'll be taking cuttings of the currant bushes as soon as I locate my bottle of rooting powder (?!) It's probably somewhere with my spare set of pruners and the gardening gloves I can't find...

In the hoop house, everything is growing like crazy - though more with leaves than with the vegetables I'm waiting for.  It's true that a lot of gardeners judge their gardens by when they have their first tomatoes, and I'm running behind.  The neighbour has already been eating ripe, red fruit - from tomato plants that I gave her (which makes my impatience slightly worse).  Her plants are falling over with fruit, while mine are just showing a few per plant. She dug up the side lawn and plopped them into the ground, while I added rabbit manure, topsoil eggshells and manure tea! It just goes to show that you can't account for all the circumstances in your garden.  Heading into week 6 without rain certainly isn't helping. This is one of the Siletz plants I have my eye on:

Oh well - there's still weeks to go for the tomato season. Just as I'm not terribly sad to see the blueberry bushes finishing up their production for the year, we'll soon be harvesting tomatoes daily in the heat, and wondering what to do with them all.  At least I'm starting to harvest the zucchini and cucumber crops, and the bees are helping with that. I've never managed to have enough cucumbers ripen at once before, for making my pickles - I've bought my supply at the farmer's market. This year may be the first year in my gardening history that cucumbers - and homegrown dill - are ready for pickling in adequate quantities at the same time.

 

The leaves of the shallots and multiplier onions started to fall over, so I finished harvesting them this morning.  They'll cure outside in the sun for a couple of days, then go into the carport to finish drying with the garlic bulbs (which have already had a preliminary cleaning). The biggest of these onions will be planted back into a freshly-prepared garden bed (after the wheat is harvested) at the same time as we put out our garlic in October.

 

The bed that was hosting our garlic plants and peas is now home to chard, kale, kohlrabi, lettuce, pole beans and some peas planted for harvesting as pea tips. The transplants were getting a bit root-bound waiting for more space, so I've got my fingers crossed that they will establish themselves and not bolt to seed. The Jerusalem artichoke in the background is flourishing - and escaping into my pathways as it tries to expand its territory. That's fine, as the rabbits are happy to eat the invaders.

 

Celine is still sitting on 'her' eggs, so we're counting down another five or six days and hoping to hear the peeps of a few baby chicks.  I'm prepared to house mother hen and her little ones in a dog kennel and covered run, if the other adult hens seem intent on interfering or harming them.

Strawberries, Blueberries and Huckleberries

Technically, the month for strawberries has passed in the garden - though there are a few lagging behind to ripen as the season continues.  If we're lucky, and the heat-wave subsides, these 'everbearing' plants will flower again (maybe two more times), and we will enjoy more fruit in the future.  For the time being, our attentions have turned to the blueberries which have been ripening since the beginning of July.  We try to pick the ripe berries at least once a day from our established bushes, to discourage predation by all of the birds looking for a tasty treat.  I just scared off several Stellar Jays having brunch... By the end of the season, we will be so tired of these daily pickings that the time will come to just let the birds have a little feast.  We still treat Nugget to a few of her favourite tidbits - our chicken loves her blueberries, and will jump to carefully nip them from between our fingers.

Yesterday morning, I went out to one of my favourite picking spots to hunt for wild huckleberries.  They're much harder to pick, averaging roughly 1/2 hour of picking for each 1/2 pint of jam that I make, but it's become a bit of a tradition for me.

 

Several times throughout the day, I checked on the hive to make sure that there was no sign of the robber bees - we physically moved the hive after the robbers returned the second day after they found the hive. The distance of a mere 10 feet and some tall plantings seems to have caused enough confusion to discourage predation. Two of the three entrance holes are blocked, and will stay that way in the near future.  I've observed guard bees pacing in and out of the remaining entrance, wary of intruders. We will do a hive inspection on Sunday to verify if our new queen is laying, and if the brood from Jen's hive has begun to emerge.  

 

In the garden, the barley, shallots and garlic are nearly ready for harvest. We had the last of our first -sown lettuce greens with dinner last night, and had blueberries with a bit of ice cream to top off our meal.  The tomatoes are in bloom, but I have yet to see any fruit development (very late this year). Cucumbers and zucchini are beginning to form, as well as the fruits on our winter squash vines.  The pole and bush beans have peaked in their growth, and are starting to set flowers for pollination. More pole beans are just breaking the ground to replace the pea plants I pulled on the weekend. Cilantro plants are busy flowering, so it looks like we will have a good crop of coriander seed - and I have successive plantings of the herb, so we are still enjoying fresh salsa, even if the tomatoes are from the store. The heat caused the oriental greens to bolt, and I've decided to let the planting essentially re-seed itself in place for the cooler months.  The first planting of basil is hitting a foot in height, and I should be harvesting this weekend to make basil/almond pesto (it keeps wonderfully in the freezer). Also on the to-do list is using up some of the parsley for home-made tabouli. 

 

While I was giving some of our plants a bit of extra water, this dragonfly fearlessly landed a foot away from me, and stayed to let me take pictures.

 

Of Bees and Blueberries

It's been 18 days since we observed a swarm of bees that had departed from the hive, and there is no sign of new life in the brood chamber.  There is a lot of nectar being stored, but it appears that the queen may have been lost in the days of bad weather we had during the time of her mating flights.  Even allowing for 10 days before she managed to successfully mate, and 3 days before beginning to lay (the maximum I've found reference to), we should have been able to visually verify larvae within the brood area by now.

The remaining workers and drones are preparing stores, but I have a sad feeling that there will be no bees left to benefit from their work this winter.

On an up note, we have been enjoying the first blueberries of the season this week.