July Garden

I have a confession. 

I have never, ever...not even once...taken care of my garden in July. It so dang hot. I always abandon it for the air conditioned indoors. The beans get all fat and hollow and I forget to pick the cucumbers before they turn into sour watermelons. The tomatoes ripen beautifully and then shrivel up and fall to the ground. 

It's shameful. 

But I am making up for it this year! I am on it! I am daily weeding and harvesting and (this one is shocking) I am using everything up and we are actually eating what we are growing. I am doing everything in my power not to allow this beautiful produce to shrivel on the vine or on my countertop. If we can't eat all of it, we give it away.

The bachelor's buttons are in bloom! I am learning how to save seed from all the different veggies and flowers so I can plant next year without having to rebuy most of things we have.

So far I have:

Blanketflowers
Bachelor's Buttons
Arugula
Cilantro
Green beans
Green onions
Dill

I'm hoping to get basil, tomatoes, cucumbers and zinnias. If I can be super patient, I'd like to try to harvest beet seeds, but that means I have to let a beet go for 2 years. Not sure I can manage that,

Not sure what these are, but they sure are cute!

Our first batch of tomatillos!

I roasted them up and made salsa verde!

And the very funnest thing...6 ears of corn! We'll have them with dinner this week! Mark was super excited to have something out of the garden that he likes!