This month's video tour

It was a beautiful sunny morning (not the best for video, but great for the garden), and I shot this video before harvesting beans and squash to eat with fresh pesto for lunch.

Potato and bean salad with New Zealand spinach

Ok, I admit it, I love a nice vinegary potato salad. I know I wrote about new potato salad earlier this  month, but this is another twist on the recipe, and salads have been my go-to thing to eat during this endless month of heat.
Anyway, I'm writing about potato salad again because I harvested the rest of my my blue potatoes last week, since the foliage had died back completely. They were one of the first crops I planted, way back on April 4th.
 The yield was a bit less than last year. According to my research this is due to all our wet, hot weather-- apparently  potatoes are stressed by being too wet for too long.
After I put  some medium tubers aside in the crisper for next year's crop I had about 15 pounds from 2 lbs of seed pots, half mine, half from H Depot. I am going to harvest the Yukon Gold  and fingerlings next week -- the foliage has died back indicating that they are ready. I still have a couple of healthy patches of Russet pots, so I hope I get decent yield over all.
To make the salad I boiled some small blues and a mix of Burgundy and Dragon Tongue beans, then diced  half of a Candy onion  and mixed it with the warm pots and beans.  I dressed them in olive oil, red wine vinegar, a bit of grain mustard, salt and pepper. Then I ate the salad over a bed of New Zealand Spinach-- a new crop for me, and an excellent substitute for spinach. I added a slab of feta and it was delicious!

Here is the potato harvest:

And the salad:

First trombone squash fruit/flower of the summer!

I got my squash in a bit late, so it's just starting to produce fruit. The trombone squash vine has been growing a foot a day during the recent heat wave. Here's a pic of the first squash of the season, flower still attached:

Harvesting Candy onions and Cylindrica beets

I looked at the radar this morning about 8 and saw a big thunderstorm about a half hour away, so I drank a quick cup of coffee and headed out to the garden.
The onion tops began flopping over last  week, a sign they were getting ready for dormancy and harvest. Last night, just before dark, I gently loosened them with a pitchfork and then pulled  and laid them out on the bed.  Theses onions are a new (to my garden) variety called Candy, a sweet  'day neutral' onion, which means it grows equally well in the South and North.
I am really happy with Candy-- the onion seedlings I got in February grew into massive round globes, and produced by far the best yield I've ever gotten from either sets or seedlings.
Here's a picture of the onions laid out in the bed:

This morning I loaded the onions into the wheelbarrow, and headed to the beet patch. The Cylindrica beets are a new variety for me this year, and though they did not make as many greens as some varieties, the strangely shaped (like squat carrots) roots yielded well and prep easily for cooking.
Here's the wheelbarrow loaded for a run to the garage -- besides the onions and beets I picked three cups of Heritage raspberries and some Burgundy bush beans.
Sol stole beans out of the wheelbarrow when my back was turned picking berries-- that dog does love his legumes.

And here's a close up of a Cylindrica beet:

I got the wheelbarrow into the garage, and laid out the onions to dry on a tarp-- and then the skies let loose.  It's been a very wet summer, but I'm learning to roll with it.

Red, White, and blue... potato salad

Red leaf lettuce is the red, not red potatoes. It self seeded from last year, and has held up to the heat (90 degrees plus today). Yukon Gold and Adirondack Blue pots, and a sherry vinegar olive oil dressing with my own red and white onions,  fresh garlic and snow peas for some crunch. And no, I did not make the cottage cheese, but most of the meal is from the garden. And to continue the theme, I am going to have yogurt with rhubarb and blueberries for dessert!

July 1 Video Tour

Here's a tour I recorded yesterday. There was a tornado watch north of us, outside Boston.  All the fierce weather this year has reminded me, yet again, of how important it is to treasure what you have when you have it, including a thriving garden.

Everything's coming up blue-- potatoes and berries, that is.

I am so happy about my blueberries! Until two years ago, my 20 bushes ( a wonderful mix of early, mid and late season varieties I got from White Flower Farms) were productive and carefree. But then the winter moth caterpillars descended and ate the flowers before they had a chance to bloom.

I researched methods of controlling the worms, and decided to use Bt. Unfortunately, my overgrow bushes were so tall that is was tough to get the spray to reach the foliage, even when I stood precariously on a ladder.

Next I researched pruning blueberries and gave them a major overhaul, removing old woody stems and trimming back suckers. 

This spring the Bt worked, the bumble bees bumbled from flower to flower, and the branches are bent to the ground with ripening berries.

I don't cover the bushes to keep the birds away-- instead I planted another ten bushes out among the perennials for them, and I pick all the ripe berries every day, morning and night. I can't bring myself to net and hurt even one of the friendly birds that eat so many insect pests in my garden, and sing to me all day.

When I was picking this morning a cat bird sat nearby and argued loudly that they were his berries...

The first harvest:

I also snuck a few new blue potatoes out of the edges of the planting, and made a colorful salad also featuring Oregon giant peapods, radish pods, and red scallion -- it was colorful and delicious. Here are the ingredients before chopping and mixing: