Beginning of July Garden Update

<Cranberry beans
Arapaho Fish Hill beans>

Arapaho Fish Hill beans

The peas are about at the end of the road.

Blooming Prairie beans on the top tier, Dragon Tongue beans on the middle tier.

Purple Podded Pole beans

Jerusalem artichokes

French lavender

Flood Pole beans

Tall Trailing nasturtium

Golden Nugget cherry tomatoes

Jimmy Nardello sweet pepper

Black Beauty eggplant

I always heard the saying "knee high by the 4th of July". I wonder if waist high is even better?

Golden Delicious apple tree...and a mess that desperately needs to be cleaned up.

Fuji apple tree

Top row is Snow Princess calendula, middle row is Bright Lights cosmos and on the bottom are Love in a Mist.

The grapes should be back with a vengeance by next summer.

Purple Emporer nasturtium

Oregon Spring tomato

The closest is a Blue Beauty and the one further away is a Paul Robeson.

A pathetic yellow summer squash.

Holy spaghetti squash!

These potatoes leaves are dying back so we'll harvest these in the next few days.

Yard Long beans in both red and green.

We're letting that bag of potatoes dry out until tomorrow and we'll see what we got in there.

Peppermint stick zinnia in the front and gorgeous looking collard greens in the back.

Maxibel and Tanya's Pink Pod bush beans. These are going to be absolutely loaded!

The backside of the spaghetti squash bed. That lettuce has seen better days, for sure!

The onions are getting big.

More baby spaghetti squash on the backside of the bed.

Pink Plume celery and Longue Rouge Sang carrots

Sword lettuce and cilantro that is going to seed. I planted garlic where the bok choy was.

Mixed Bachelor Button flowers. I read somewhere that these are edible. I don't eat them. I just like them.

Golden beets

Chioggia beets

This is either white or pink Japanese dandelions. I'll have to wait until they bloom to find out which pot is which.

Jibai Shimoshirazu cucumber plant

The walkway to the back garden.

The side garden...this is where I put a lot of the things that I want to climb the fence.

Blooming Prairie "bush" beans. I love the coloring on these.

Egyptian Walking Onions

Garden sage. This got a bit of a sunburn.

Cucamelon plant. I'm not sure if I'll get anything off of these or not.

Strawberry spinach. I grew this last year and we enjoyed it.

In the bed: Lacinato kale, Drunk Woman Frizzy Head lettuce, Parisienne carrots and fenugreek. In the pots below are basil (Thai, if I remember correctly) and lemongrass.

The rhubarb was traumatized when the bottom fell out of the bed. It's starting to come back.

Chioggia beets. In one pot, I planted echinacea and in the other I planted dill. I'm seeing how both companion plant with the beets.

I'm very proud of this spaghetti squash!

Nasturtiums!

Giant Italian parsley

Casper eggplant. This little guy has been through a lot and I'm quite surprised that it's still growing.

Sunburn tomatoes.

Gold Nugget cherry tomatoes

The Spring Blush peas that I'm saving for seed. I can't find anywhere to buy them, so I grew them out to save seed.

 

Harvesting and Preserving Peas

 We just came through the hottest temperatures ever recorded in western Washington state. The rare heat dome actually effected the entire Pacific Northwest. I thought my peas were goners, for sure. I was wrong. Not only did they pull through, mostly unscathed, they are still blooming! For whatever reason, I've always been able to grow amazing pea and bean crops...or such that they are in containers and raised beds.

This was just one bucket of peas. I believe this was the Oregon Sugar Pod variety. Next year, I plan on planting triple to quadruple the amount that I planted this year. We like our frozen peas, for sure. I also use the immature pods in stir fries, which I missed out on because of my dogs fighting and resulting in me getting bit.

I started out with a full strainer of peas that I had picked. 

That's the thing about peas. It takes a lot of them to get anywhere. I don't grow these to save money, that's for sure. I can buy a big bag of frozen peas for around a buck at any supermarket. I grow these because I like to grow my own food...as meager portioned as it is.

Get a pan, fill it with water and give it a few shakes of sea salt. I know that a lot of people swear by kosher salt. I have kosher salt, but I prefer pink or grey sea salt. 

I can also see that I need to desperately clean my stove. Bob has been doing the cooking these past few weeks.

 Bring the pot of water to a rolling boil. 

In the meantime, mark your freezer container/bag with the contents and date. 

Once the water is at a rolling boil and the salt has dissolved...

add in the peas. Bring the water back up to a boil and blanch the peas for 2 minutes. 

You'll read all sorts of recipes and guidelines that tell you to drain the peas and plunge into ice water. That's too much rigamaroll to go through. Just drain them in a strainer and run them under cold water. It's fine. You don't need to dirty another bowl. That's ridiculous. 

Viola! You just started your journey into growing and preserving your own food. Seriously, though, preparing any vegetable for the freezer is the easiest way to get your feet wet in the preserving world. Use this same method for green beans, carrots, celery (yes, frozen celery is fantastic!), corn, tomatoes, etc.
All those peas that I picked? Well, after shelling them, I got about a cup or so of peas. I'll be picking them again in a few days. Pretty soon, they will be kicking the bucket and we will be pulling them up to make the buckets ready for fall/winter greens.
Oh, before I forget!! I found a gem of a YouTube channel. Bob and I have sat and watched this person for hours during our heatwave. I hope you enjoy her as much as we have. We, especially, love her dog. Her channel is called Dianxi Xiaoge.
Enjoy!