It has been a while since I have updated about our garden or well, anything else. I always think summer is going to be easier and slower and yet as the girls get older it is busier than the school year. So maybe when school starts back I will back log some updates.
This morning I had time to really work in the garden. (Thank you Grandma and Pop for keeping the girls last night.)
Here is a picture before I got started. It has been a couple of weeks since I have really been out there.

Everything needed a little weeding and care. The sunflowers are done. I cut the heads off to dry the seeds. They were beautiful and really flourished. I think it will try them again but not in the garden. They used all the nutrients and my onions suffered greatly.

Maybe they would make a nice “wall” on the outside of the garden? Or maybe in the end zone by the pool.
I pruned the tomatoes a bit. I am learning the difference in bush and vining tomatoes. It is good to prune vines but not really bush tomatoes. Both type did great until the intense heat set in and I slacked in fertilizing. Also, I had a few aphids. I used a little seven spray. I know, not really organic but nothing else seems to get rid of them. My granddaddy used seven dust. Every old timer I ask says it is safe and effective. I have to admit that it did get rid of the bugs. After fertilizing a little a couple of weeks ago we are seeing fruit again. There is a good lesson – if you just water but don’t feed the plants they will live but not bear any fruit. Kind of like my attitude when I miss worship. I am still living and functioning and mostly nice but turn selfish pretty quickly. When I am fed with scripture, worship or prayer, I am able to serve in a different way and hopefully be producing fruit.

I didn’t get a picture of the purple Cherokee “tree” because I didn’t have enough hands to hold it up and try to take a picture. It has grown so much and is so big that it looks more like a small tree than a tomato vine. It had pulled the tomato cage over and bent it. But it is still producing some yummy purplish red tomatoes. It did however dwarf the carrots completely and they did not grow hardly at all.

I think I waited a little too long to cut the celery. Isn’t celery supposed to be green? The stalks never really turned green. I have been waiting and watching. Maybe they were too close together? Or not enough nutrients? I pulled some and left some. It is worth a taste. At least hey smell like celery stalks.

Now the beans. Last year I had the beans by the tomatoes. Not a good combination. This year they started off really well. And then the deer found them. Why is so hard for us to spot the beans on the vine but so easy for the deer to eat them all? Here is a nice picture of the deer eating the apples from under our neighbors tree.

We see them almost every evening. A couple of fawns, a buck and a couple of does. Nice sweet little family. That is until they mow down my beans and sweet potato vines! I stuck a head of garlic in the fence on both sides and finally the beans and potatoes have come back and the deer have moved on to other food. Next year I think I plant garlic on the outside border of the garden. Hooray for garlic!

So today I harvested a good bit of beans. Not enough to make a run for canning but about half a family serving. I stuck them in the freezer. The next time I pick I should have enough to make for our family.
Last year we had cucumbers coming out our ears. This year my plant has hardly grown at all and the cucumbers are short and plump. I will go back to the kind I had last year.

So here is how the garden looked when I finished today. It was very therapeutic to be out there again. Maybe it does not look all that different but I think it will produce better and now I have space for some fall crops and weeding just feels good!

And last but not least a picture of the produce from today.