Our garden before trimming

Welcome to the summer solstice.  We are through the planting rush and ready to kick back and watch things grow.  Some things have shriveled, others boomed, others we are waiting to see.

We finally removed the covers of our raised beds this week.  The tomatoes seem to really have been enjoying the extra night protection that they got but they are ready for full son.  Good thing, because it is hot and sunny now. Gone are the cold nights and rainy weekends that kept us partly in.  Seems so long ago but it was last weekend.  Well, summer is here in force.

We spent the morning yesterday harvesting salad and arugula, as it is close to bolting.  So is the cilantro.  We chopped off all of the flowers, thinned them out, and brought in as many leaves as possible.  It is time for cod with cilantro and green chile tonight, a favorite when the cilantro is ready way before it is time to make salsa with it.  What else do people do with cilantr?  I would love some feedback.  Cilantro pesto, cilantro paste for fish, and there is still just so much cilantro.  I am ready to move on to the basil, but it is still growing slow.  Tomato cages went on.  I am a fan of these as we tend to garden by the “survival of the fittest” method for space, but the cages give the tomatoes the space that they need, and we all know that a veggie garden without tomatoes, is, ultimately, well just that, a veggie garden with something missing.

Other events for the say were harvesting spinach, removing some of the spent lettuce heads, and adding new lettuce, basil and cilantro seeds for our later crops.  We looked for our seedlings of our beets and made sure they had room amongst the potatoes.  Now we are read tonight for the first does of fish emulsion foliar feeding, which we will continue every two weeks for a while now.