We have had very unusual weather this year. Not a lot of rain over the winter and spring. No freezing temperatures last winter to kill off bugs. Very hot temperatures since the beginning of June.

Thankfully my husband put in a new soaker hose system. It is really great. Rather than having one hose with a male connector on one end and a female connector on the other end, you just have solid hose. You cut the length you want and then attach connectors. It really controls where the water goes so we don’t have any waste.

I think our garden would not have done as well as it is with regular sprinklers.

Here is what is growing at this point in the garden.

Let’s start with these sunflowers. Sure they are pretty but I’m not too fond of them. They are volunteers and they are growing in the raised beds. What I don’t like is how tall they are. They shade some of my plants in the garden. Particularly the peppers which need a lot of sun. I would like to remove them but I’m the only one who feels that way.

Right next to the raised beds (after the peppers) are our rhubarb plants. We LOVE rhubarb. I bought these in Portland right when we moved down here last year. We have four plants and they are all doing wonderfully. We make: strawberry/rhubarb fruit leather, rhubarb crisp, rhubarb sauce and I used to make strawberry/rhubarb pie filling but the last time I did that the seals broke on multiple jars after a few months so I’m giving up on that.

Here is our winter squash section. It’s going wild.

In the winter squash section we have a bunch of Winter Luxury Pumpkins growing. I had a few last year and I made homemade pumpkin pie with them and EVERYONE who tasted it said it was the BEST pumpkin pie they ever had. So I planted a lot more this year. Next to it is a Delicata Squash

That is a Sweet Meat winter squash. It will get much larger and change color before it is ready to harvest.

We also planted Sweet Dumpling squash. It won’t get much bigger than in this picture but the color will change a lot.

Most of the eating cucumbers grow on ladders. Since this picture was taken the plants have filled in any open space. Most of those are the ones Joshua picked to plant.

The two eating cucumbers I chose to grow are the Suyo Long Cucumbers and the Spacemaster cucumbers (both are growing on ladders).

Last summer my mother-in-law bought us a watermelon start for our garden. It was already July when we received it so we never harvested any watermelon but we did have one begin to grow. It got about soft ball size. Well that encouraged us to believe we could grow melons in the Willamette Valley. So here is what we are growing:

Watermelon. This is about 50% larger today.

Honeydew melon. These are about twice as big today.

Cantaloupe. Again, at least twice as big today. We have had so much heat that the melons are really growing. We are so excited to grow our own melons. Who would have thought!

Here are some of our pole beans. I must confess, I have a hard time starting pole beans. They say that you must sow directly outdoors but it seems like so many seeds never germinate. See the wonderful strings my hubby put up so they can grow up. He is such a good gardener.

Here is our row of potatoes. We wanted to grow potatoes in towers of tires like my friend Kimberly does. I didn’t have any tires so I planted them in a trench. My neighbor gave me a half dozen tires but by then I already had them in the ground. Hopefully next year. I also put some in our raised beds.

This year I tried some new stuff. These things were mostly afterthoughts. The garden was planted but there was still more room so why not plant more stuff.

I have multiple broccoli plants. So far all I’m seeing are leaves. No actual broccoli.

Cabbage. I am hoping to make Sauerkraut this year. My friend Kirsten gave me some of hers last summer and it is SO GOOD.

Eggplant. Why not? It’s good to grow some things my kids claim to not like. “Hey, we grew this so you’re eating it.”

Here are nine tomato plants. I bought these and was thankful to find them. What happened to the 30 plants that we started and planted?

We really don’t know. I’ve taken samples to the OSU Extension office in McMinnville twice. Once they told us our soil was to acidy. The next time (I took a full plant in) they said it was aphids. We planted the tomatoes in a new area along with some corn. Not part of the big garden but a section about half the size of the big garden. We are wondering if something is wrong with the soil. I’m also wondering if the starts were just not big enough. Michael is planning on building us a larger grow rack so we can put some things (tomaotes) in larger pots next winter when we do starts again.

Another problem is one of our plum trees. We didn’t prune the plum trees (our pruning class didn’t cover plums). This one had a ton of plums and we had some breakage.

In that picture you see that the branch didn’t break off completely but split.

This branch completely broke off.

Thankfully chickens like plums.

On a side note, we have a garden shed right next to the garden. This rose bush is growing next to the shed. The bush itself is in really bad shape, but these roses are quite pretty.

You might have notice the various holes in leaves on our plants. That would be organic farming. Our produce won’t look perfect but it will be chemical free.

Have a great Friday. Make something with eggplant in it this weekend and if it is good, send me the recipe.
Karen