Carry On

I thought I'd do an update to the last garden post because I may have made it sound as though it was a crash and burn situation and actually, the garden is doing pretty well.  I finally managed to get some recent photos too.  Of course, no tomatoes right now and if I get any this year they are going to be really late coming in but other than that things are doing well.
These are the new pole beans this year; Kentucky Wonder.   No actual beans yet but it shouldn't be long.

We are very fortunate here in that if something screws up a first planting, our season is long enough to try again.  And try again is what we do until it just isn't going to work anymore.  So, the second planting of corn is doing very well.  Yes, the farmer down the road already has ears tasseling on his corn but we will get a good crop this year.  And the farmer's market will tide us over on corn and tomatoes until ours comes in.

I think I'm going to have a "do-over" on the squash too because those volunteer plants finally produced a product and I'm not sure what the hell it is!  It sorta looks like a squash but it also looks like it might be part something else.  The plants are also kinda funky looking as they are running way more than squash plant should.  I suspect I'll be pulling those up shortly and putting in a couple of bought squash plants.  If I can find any this late.  If not, well, I might plant something else.
That's the thing with gardening, you have to be willing to go on to Plan B or C or even D sometimes.  I don't stress over it that much.  If my crop doesn't do well I will go to the market or just try something else.  I might not get to make strawberry jam every year but I'll have some kind of jam, and lots of it, every year.  So, you do what you can.
Right now we are harvesting blueberries, cucumbers, a few onions, sugar snap peas, lots of herbs and eggs of course.  We obviously don't try to be self-sufficient but we do try to make a fair dent in what fruits and veggies we buy and preserve.  Later on we should have corn, okra, black-eyed peas, green beans, tomatoes (hopefully), eggplant, peppers, grapes, figs, watermelon and cantaloupe.  Oh, and the wild blackberries are starting to ripen, so I'll gather some of those. 

 And I occasionally harvest a few daylily buds for stir-fry too!  I try not to use my fancy ones but instead, use the scads of the old, standard orange daylily that you find everywhere.  They are very sweet and tender and make a nice addition.  I'll  say this though, if you want to try it, add them at the very end of the stir-fry because it doesn't take them long to cook and they are easily overdone.

I thought I'd share a few of my other day lilies that are blooming right now.  We did not go to that annual sale this year that the local nursery has and where I get my collection from.  I just didn't feel like it.

The kiln is cooling now and hopefully the morning, or really afternoon, will bring to light a nice firing and I can deliver a new batch of pottery to town.  At least I can get out to do that.