July in the Western Plains and Mountains

This month we can start thinking of fall crops.  Beets, carrots, peas and various greens can be seeded now.  We can start broccoli and kale indoors to tranplant out later as well.  I am not well versed in this but I have friends who are so I know it is doable, especially for those with a bit longer season than I.

To me this month is big on flowers so I took lots of pictures of such and now I can not get them to post.  Maybe in a couple days.  The fava beans and potatoes are blooming besides flowers and cilantro and tomatoes etc. 

I am picking lots of peas and the scapes are all picked and there is broccoli to pick as well.  I feel swelling on the carrot roots.  The corn is more than knee high.  I better get it mulched.  The potatoes have an extra 6 inches of mix and then 6 inches of old hay mulch and are a good 2 feet taller than that.  The flowers are lavender, very pretty.

How are your plantings recovering from the hail, johnp?

Looking forward to your photos.

Most of our plants have recovered. The chard still looks terrible but new shoots are coming up. The terrible infestation of aphids on all of our kale forced me to tear out the whole bed which we did several days ago. Replanted the whole bed.
This weekend we harvested all the garlic and it looks good. Planted beets, spinach, carrots, lettuce and basil. Recharged the space left from the garlic and will replant but what I don't know, maybe more beets and more parsley.

I am glad to hear the plants have recovered well enough.  It always amazes me how much of a battering they can stand and then recover. 
There were huge clouds rolling at me this afternoon so I ran out and picked stuff in fear of hail.

Are you seeing aphids in other plantings?  My aspen trees have a terrible infestation.  So far none in the garden. 

Congrats on the garlic.  Mine is starting to die back.  Maybe in a couple weeks I will pull it.

Some pictures I took early in the month.  There is a bit of a flower theme  

Marigolds under the tomatoes.


Linaria blooming alongside the cold frame.  Potatoes in the back ground.


Potatoes


Two trellis full of peas with cilantro, poppies and a sunflower between.


A broccoli head (DiCiccio or Green Goliath).  THey are flower buds so count for this theme.  I picked several more like this and blanched and froze them.


The yarrow is alive with tiny parasitic wasps and hover flys.  That is the greens bed behind it.


Asparagus bed with poppies etc.  The strawberries are underr there, they are recovering from the harsh pruning hte sheep gave them a couple months ago.


Since I took these pictures I see cucumber and bean flowers in the greenhouse.    Lots of pollinator activity in there and every where.  YEAH!

What a lot of great flowers. Are Linaria the same as sweetpeas? They look like sweetpeas we have growing on the sides of the roads here.

Thanks

Linaria is actually more related to snapdragons and is sometimes called baby snapdragon.  It can be a wild flower sometimes called annual toadflax.  It is not one of the wide pea/legumne family.  I planted 2 packets of sweet peas and none came up!  grrrr

You remind me of one more picture I meant to post~ fava beans

VERY nice, Turan.... 


The poppys - are those the type you can use for poppy seed for bread, etc.?

I never thought about saving the seeds for bread before.  Some of the poppies are Shirley/ Flanders poppies and some are Hungarian Pepperbox which I think is a bread seed poppy.  I just let it self seed and have not tried saving the seed.  My god mother gave me her recipe for Hungarian poppy seed coffee cake though....

Turan, Thank you for that wonderful tour!