The Garden Chronicles July 31, 2011 - Catching Up and Weeds Be Gone!

Record-setting heat, humidity and rain this summer led to record-setting weed growth in the vegetable and flower beds.  We can barely keep up with them all.  

Our strawberry bed gave us small but sweet fruit, and the currant bushes were heavier with fruit than during our drought years.  

An overview of the yard shows plants grown tall from rain, but they have been slow to produce edibles.  Squash and zucchini have flowers but so far just one zucchini.  Some squash bugs may be to blame.  Cucumbers are now coming in slowly, as well.

All 15 of the seedling tomato plants have flowers and small tomatoes forming.  Tomato plants have planted themselves all over the garden, including this one that is growing out of the compost heap.

Here are the squash and cucumber plants.

Tomatoes and beans.

In the front yard, the black-eyed susans are this week's show of our street.

The phlox is one of the last summery flowers to bloom.

The black raspberries planted last year are now as tall as the red raspberry bushes in the backyard.  Both have produced very well this summer.

We are looking forward to pears in a few weeks.  They look like they are almost ready, but they need to ripen and get a little larger before we will pick them.

Today's harvest was beans, asparagus that seems neverending this summer, one small carrot, and a cucumber.