Garden Report for 2021, part 3

   It is well past time that I updated this blog! So, I continue with the vegetable garden report. July was an unusually wet month, and so the plants grew more than usual. Here are some photos from July 25.

  The above photo shows the edges of the bean rows at the bottom; above can be seen cabbage at right, tomatoes at left, and kale in the center. Behind the cabbage are onions, and behind them are broccoli. At the top of the photo are potatoes. 

  Here we have at the right a row of cucumbers at the bottom, and summer squash above that. You can see some blossoms. Just to the left is a row tomatoes, while further to the left are cabbages (top) and kale (below). The next row to the left has onions, while to the left of them at the top is broccoli. Usually I grow a half dozen Sungold tomatoes, a superb tasting variety, and then a slicing tomato. Unfortunately late blight usually takes the slicers out by the end of August, and in nearly 40 years of gardening I've not settled on a single slicing variety. One year when I was a lot younger I grew about 20 different varieties, sourced from seed swaps via the Seed Saver Exchange, after I scoured old Maine agricultural books and catalogs to see what varieties were grown 100 and 150 years ago. I came up with several dozen, but most of them had been lost. The results, I'm sorry to say, were disappointing and I didn't continue with any of those varieties the following year.

  Above, we have two rows of potatoes, with the tops (especially the variety at lower right) beginning to yellow and die off. These are Red Gold and quite delicious. If you've not tasted a fresh dug and then freshly cooked Red Gold potato, you don't know what you're missing. They don't store very well, though. The row at the right contains mainly storage potatoes, but by early September they should also be ready for digging.