Friday, August 23, 2013

Garden Update: August 2013

After a beautiful week of early autumn-like temperatures, we find ourselves roasting in the summer heat and humidity of the midwest again. Even though I hate hot and steamy summer days, I love that the plants love it, and are using every ounce of it to grow and produce more fruit. By regularly foliar feeding the tomatoes and pepper plants a solution of epsom salts and sea kelp, I've been able to keep our plants flowering and flourishing. 

I thought that in lieu of the usual pictures, I'll do a little something different for this month's garden update by making a list of all the plants we planted this year. Of course, not everything we attempted was a success. Some plants we planted specifically for the cool spring weather, and others, for the heat of the summer. Some plants are perennials (from last year) that came back. Some plants are from the seeds that we started, and the ones we got impatient with, we ended up with store-bought transplants instead. We definitely weren't expecting to be 100% successful. We were mostly just having fun and being experimental. And we're glad for the failures since even the failures had lessons worth learning. 

picture of today's garden at 3pm

So here's our list ...

amaranth: red stripe and asia red
arugula                                          
baby bok choy                              
basil: holy, thai, lettuce-leaf
begonias
beans
blueberries: blue ray, jersey
borage
broccoli rapini
calendula
carrots: tender sweet and little fingerlings
Catalina (wishbone flower)
catnip
cat mint
celery
chin chiang cabbage
chives: Chinese (garlic) and regular
cilantro
clover
cucumber
curry leaf plant
dill
eggplants: lavender, little fingers
Impatiens (white double impatiens)
Irish poet tassels (flower)
kaffir lime
kai lan (Chinese broccoli)
kale: Siberian, blue curled
komatsuna
lavender: French, English
lemongrass
lettuce (a variety)
marjoram
marigolds
meyer lemon
molokhia
mints: Vietnamese, orange, chocolate, peppermint
nemesia
nasturtiums
okra
oregano: regular, spicy
ornamental oregano
pansies (a variety)
parsley : giant, flat leaf
peach tree
peppers: Chinese 5 color, mini bell, chocolate, Golden cal, purple, yellow, green, red, thai dragon, chili, jalapeno, shishito, banana pepper, Serrano, poblano
pepper cress
raspberry
rosemary
sage
salvia
scallions
shiso
snapdragons (a variety)
spinach
strawberries (a variety)
swiss chard
tarragon
thyme: lemon, silver
tickseed
tomatoes: hybrid bush champion, roma, sweet baby girls
watermelon: little baby flower, malali
yu choy (a variety)

Pretty astounding for our tiny little patio. I can't wait till we have a "real" garden!

And in the spirit of getting ready for the fall, we planted 2 rounds of beets, some more carrots, and some turnips and radishes this month. We are also eager to try planting some Chinese veggies again. We don't have much luck with those. The worms seem to always be a step ahead of us. Maybe some floating row covers will help?

scarlet "sparkler" turnips and "pink beauty" radishes
red and golden beets
tender sweet baby carrots

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