From Arugula to Zinnias: Garden Update Early July 2011

So despite the presence of some yellow tomato leaves, the garden is doing well. In fact, I have more cucumbers than I know what to with, but will probably post something about that soon. In the above photo you can see most of what I'm growing in about half of my garden. Our plots are a little bigger this year, 10'x12' instead of last year's 10'x10', so I had a little more room for experimenting with things I haven't grown before, like okra, brussels sprouts and zinnias.

Here's the rundown, with photos, from Arugula to Zinnias:

Above you can see that I've let the arugula go to flower or "bolt". I read recently that salad mixes with arugula flowers are selling for big bucks at farmer's markets in NYC, so I might go ahead and try to eat some of those flowers. Otherwise, I'm going to attempt some seed saving and try a second crop of arugula later in the season. They may also go ahead and reseed themselves. We'll have to wait and see.

Here's some teeny little bell peppers. I forget if these are the yellow or the green/red ones, but either way they're looking good!

And the cucumbers. Oh my the cucumbers! These guys have just gone crazy this year! I took this photo after picking a dozen cukes, so this was one of the bigger ones on the vine. I've already pickled 4 big jars, made more Raita and Tzatziki than I know what to do with and am planning on making Cucumber and Hendrick's sorbet soon. I might try to pull together a blog post on what to do with so many cucumbers!

Okra. Hmmm.... Okra is a mystery to me. Mac and I saw the plants at a farm stand and he convinced me to try it, so I did. I've already cut a few, but I'm not sure what to do with them. We'll have to see how that turns out. But they do look like little space ships, sorta, which is cool.

My sunflowers are going well, but are not as big as I thought they'd be. They're only about chest high and it looks like they might bloom in the next week or so. This one is planted right next to my garden gnome.

And tomatoes... The tomatoes have been interesting this year. They started out well, then got some blighty-looking leaves, then I sprayed an organic fungicide on them and it looks like they're doing OK. You can see in the photo above some of the yellow leaves, but more importantly, some of the nearly ripe sungold tomatoes! These things are like candy. It's kind of amazing. And the plant is already as tall as me.

Above are some San Marzano tomatoes. I got these because they're supposed to be the best for making tomato sauce. Last year I made sauce with some Early Girls and it was really good frozen and used up over the winter. I'm hoping to do the same thing with these guys this summer.

And here is my little volunteer tomato plant. Actually this in one of two volunteer plants. The other one is right in the mix with the other tomatoes, but this one sprouted in a row right next to the basil, so I put a cage around it to remind me that it wasn't a weed, and we'll see what happens!

In addition to these tomatoes, I also have an Early Girl and a Celebrity tomato plant. Four plants that I planted, and 2 volunteers. Hopefully it will be a good tomato crop!

And last but not least, on a whim this year I decided to plant some Zinnias. I have never grown flowers in my garden, outside of a couple of sunflowers, so this was kind of a new adventure. And I LOVE them! They make wonderful cut flowers, as you can see below, and they last a long time. I love the way they look as little buds, too, as in the photo above. I'll definitely plant these again in the future!

So overall the garden is going well. I'm waiting to see how the Brussels Sprouts turn out, and I've already picked a handful of green beans, but I'm sure I'll get more as the summer goes on. It's been a little different this year because I live much further from the garden then I did the past two years, but it's been really fun to ride my bike over with my gardening gloves and snips in my bike basket, and ride home with it full of goodies!