July 4th Garden Journal Update From the Laughing Dragon Garden!

It has been a long time since the last Laughing Dragon Garden update, but perhaps that's a good thing since it means we have been spending our days in the garden, rather than in front of the computer!

We got a very late start this year because we had the coldest and most overcast late winter and spring in 80 years.

Not good, for example, for the tomatoes which are now finally starting to look like something.

We have a few tiny tomatoes, but we are a long way from the "Mater Forest" that yielded 100+ lbs in 2021.

Most years, we have had certain staple favorites that we know will do well, but we also try a couple of new things, just to see if we can successfully grow them here.

This year, we decided to have a go at rutabagas (known as "swedes" in some parts of the world) and so far they seem to be doing well.

Like most of our plants this year, they got a slow start, but in the past week or so, they have started to thicken up.

It has been quite a good year for strawberries, though! There is just no comparison between supermarket bought berries and those harvested fresh from the garden!

Normally, we get to pick berries all summer long as we have a couple of "ever-bearing" varietals, but we were a bit worried that wouldn't happen this year. But — just a couple of days ago — we started noticing a few flowers, so there'll be more berries in a few weeks!

The potatoes are a bit of a mixed bag this year. Most of these actually came from potatoes that started sprouting in the kitchen vegetable drawer; some reds, some gold.

This is the first part of our expansion project outside our main deer fence, planting them in a location against the fence where we used to make compost from yard waste and grass clipping, so the soil is really good!

They are just now starting to bloom, and some were laid more recently and will hopefully be giving new potatoes in the early fall. We're having faith that since potatoes are a member of the Nightshade family, the deer will leave the greenery alone!

Green beans are one of the things we always grow lots of — were still going on self-saved seeds dating back quite a few years. Like everything, they are a little "late" this year, but hopefully it will be another good crop.

They may not look like much, but once they climb the poles and reach up to the wire cage that used to house our chicken coop they pretty much take over the world and we often end up with 30-40lbs of fresh beans from maybe a dozen plants!

Getting back to "new things" we're growing this year, it's our first year to try growing leeks.

They are still fairly small, and it took a long time for them to even get to this point, but now they are finally growing more quickly. They need to be thinned one more time, but we're hopeful!

In choosing new veggies to grow this year, we took a look at what typically thrives in damp cooler climates... like Scotland and Scandinavia, which are not dissimilar — climate wise — from where we live.

Hopefully, it'll be a worthy strategy!

So far, haven't had anything particularly colorful to show off, so here's a picture of some of my "rescue pansies."

The story with these is that we had a hanging basket of flowers on the opposite side of the house, and as the flowers finished their blooming cycle, the seeds dropped onto the lawn below. All of a sudden, tiny pansies started growing in the lawn! So I had to rescue them before they'd get chopped down by the mower.

Rescue pansies

But let's get back to the green stuff, which we have lots of!

The "herb nook" is extremely lush this year!

Marjoram (foreground), dill (back left) and cilantro (back right)

We've got a literal forest of marjoram, cilantro and dill; whatever we don't end up using fresh will be going into the dehydrator to be dried for winter.

Most of our garden this year is dotted with "volunteer" sunflowers, which we are pretty much leaving alone to do their thing.

Our small patch of snow peas are slowly "getting there." We grew a few last year and really liked having them for salads and stir-fry's.

Even though we started them in pots, they have also been slow to get going.

The white crowned sparrows are our constant gardening companions! We discovered they had a nest going in one of the strawberry beds (they are ground nesters) but even though we left their corner untouched, it was unsuccessful. They started a new nest outside the fence, and recently sent young ones out into the world!

Meanwhile, our little garden mascot thinks everything is wonderful!

Of course, not everything we grow is for eating.

The roses in the garden are doing really well this year, clearly benefiting from a fairly substantial pruning in the late fall.

And that's about it, for this update, before it gets out-of-hand long!

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(all images are my own!)

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