My typical mid-summer morning – laundry first.  Bed sheets washed and hung on the line so they absorb that sunshine, fresh air smell. 

Since it’s late July, the wild blueberries are ripening.  We live in a pine forest, so really acid soil.  Blueberries love acid, poor quality soil.  They grow so thick in some place I get my feet caught as I walk through them.  These are the low growing bushes – maybe a foot high – with small sweet berries.  It’s a lot of bending over, and being careful not to drop the quarter inch or less berries, but I finally get a mug full.  It’s enough for pancakes or a batch of muffins.

I didn’t expect them to be easy this year.  Early on I saw few flowers or small berries.  I think the rainy and cool spring put a damper on pollination of the flowers.  I find some good bushes though in the sun, loaded with berries, while many other bushes are bare.  By 10.30 am, I’m being bitten by deer flies and my mug is full.  Out in the woods I hear a grouse calling.  My guess is she’s having blueberries for breakfast as well.

A quick tour of the garden to check things.  The peas are about done.  The vines are starting to die back and I only find 5 pods of peas to pick.  Just enough for a snack right there in between the rows.

Green and wax beans will be loaded- there are lots of flowers.  Zucchini are starting to fruit really well.  There will be plenty.  Do zucchini ever produce poorly? And I’ll have a heaping load of tomatoes – San Marzano, beefsteak and small pear and cherry tomato vines are all heavy with fruit.  I try different heirlooms every year, and save the seeds to start next year.  This way the plants begin to adapt to the homestead environment, and will grow better every year. 

I can’t wait to see some ripening.  Tomatoes just pulled from the vine having ripened under sunshine are the best thing ever.  Tomato caprese with fresh mozzarella, tomato bruschetta, a BLT on whole grain toast….yum, possibilities are endless.

While I have a large garden, I also do some container gardening on the deck right by the kitchen.  My herbs are here.  I don’t want to run all the way out to the garden when I need a sprig of rosemary or a handful of basil and thyme.  It’s only a few steps away.  Just walk out with my scissors and snip whatever I need.  So if you don’t have property or space for a garden, do some container gardening.  Cut off plastic milk jug tops, use flower pots, or in my case even a Styrofoam container my arthritis medicine arrived in.  I just harvested all the lettuce in it yesterday, and put it back outside so it regrows.

In fact, this lettuce in the metal tray is recycled lettuce plants.  I bought some whole lettuce that had the bottom core intact.  I cut off the bases and put them in a bit of water, and look!  New lettuce plants start growing.  They probably won’t become full plants, but I will more lettuce from the cores.  Same thing with a celery base.  It’s hydroponic gardening at it’s easiest.

How does your garden grow?