This week was a bit of a blur, as most work weeks are. My impression though, is that our weather was a bit of a mixed bag. Some damp, dreary weather but also some sun. Thursday was definitely sunny and I did manage to get out and take a peek at the garden. It was pretty hot out even.
Pretty much right away I noticed Garlic Scapes.
Garlic Scapes
I have noticed them before, it just seemed like suddenly there were a lot of them.
I also picked a handful of Orange Cherry Tomatoes – some ready to eat, some not quite ripe.
Thursday's Tomatoes
I also noticed that some of my container plants were looking a little on the wilty side and meant to go in and check the weather, to see if I needed to come back out and water, but somehow that never happened.
Yesterday (Saturday) was a pretty nice day. We went out and did some grocery shopping earlier in the day, but I headed out to the garden late-afternoon-ish to empty my potato tubs. The plants were looking kind of raggedy, so I decided it was time.
One thing I do remember from the past week, any time I’ve been outside the mosquitoes have been vicious. It was windy yesterday, so I thought I’d be okay. No such luck. I ended up going back for my Mosquito Lantern. With the wind, I had a hard time getting it lit. I used 9 matches. I wasn’t sure if the wind would keep it from being effective, but it definitely made a difference. As long as I didn’t get to far from the lantern, I didn’t get bitten (and you feel these suckers when they bite you; vicious I say). I don’t want to know what kind of nasty chemicals are in these things to make them work. Please don’t tell me. I just want to not be eaten by mosquitoes.
Mosquito Lantern
Last year I dug up my potatoes one tub at a time. This year I just decided to do it all at once. It’s a bit of a messy job to do, since I can’t just dump them them out onto the lawn. I have to dig out the dirt and dump it into another container, which I then have to drag all the way around the house to dispose of. I got my exercise for the day. 🙂
Potatoes
I thought to myself that it didn’t seem like quite as many potatoes as we got from the potato tubs last year. But I wasn’t sure. I took them in to scrub them and Cory said he thought it wasn’t as many as last year. But it hasn’t been the best summer either, so I’m quite happy we got as many as we did.
I picked some more tomatoes – including some not quite ripe ones that I was worried would fall off the plants, since we have a storm coming (Tropical Storm Irene). I also cut some garlic scapes – I have no idea if there is a best time to cut them, I’m not sure how long these ones have been there, but I figured why  not give it a try. And I pulled a few green onions, which we used for supper. I keep buying green onions, forgetting I have them growing out in the garden, but this time I actually remembered.
Onions, Tomatoes, Garlic Scapes
And, while I was out there, I dug up a bit more garlic. I keep saying I’m going to go out and dig it all up, but so far I haven’t had a chance. A bit at a time is better than not getting it done.
Garlic
A couple of the garlic scapes are starting to open up – this one is the closest. So interesting to see these things in different stages of the growing season.
Garlic Scape Blossoming
I was happy to see that my Lemon Mint is starting to blossom as well.
Lemon Mint
The catnip plant is also flowering, and when I took a close up photo I realized that while they are smaller and white instead of purple, they are the same shape as the catmint flowers. Not a shock I guess, since I think they are the same family of plant, but I don’t remember ever noticing before.
After playing with the camera, it was time to see what I could do for the tomato plants on the deck. This week I noticed that the plants were all falling over to the side. It almost looked like something had landed in the plant and knocked it over.
So, I staked a bunch of the stalks to hopefully stay up.
And I gave it a little bit of water, but not a lot since there’s supposed to be a whole lotta rain coming our way. It actually is looking better today, after the rain we’ve had so far.
So far today we’ve had rain, thunder and lightning. Nothing too extreme. Hoping that’s the extent of the storm.