Peas and New Beds

The vegetable garden beds are really enjoying the rain and heat. We've had very hot weather with high humidity that has resulted in thunderstorms later in the evening or sometimes throughout the night.

Beans & Peas: Bed #3

The beans and peas are growing by leaps and bounds. Bean varieties I'm growing include Kentucky Wonder pole (green & yellow), Romano pole, Edible Snow, Little Marvel, and Lincoln Homesteader. The vines have all entertwined so it is somewhat hard to distinguish between all but the snow peas. If left to mature the snow peas form nice sized peas. The pods are edible just perfect for stir fries.

Little Marvel Peas

This is a heritage variety of peas. The pods are deep green and nearly round. The peas are a good size! Each pod is tightly packed with 7-8 very sweet, tender peas that freeze well. I've been harvesting enough peas to fill a little over a quart after they are shelled. These are being froze as they come in. I am very happy with the performance of these peas!

The new raised beds are making good progress. It's hard to tell that beds #6 and 7 are new as they are performing well right along with the other beds. Bed #8 isn't fully planted but still looks good.

Bed #6

Tomatoes, peppers and marigolds are planted in this new raised bed. Considering the tomatoes were planted much later than the tomatoes in bed #1, at 20" tall they are quickly catching up to the 3' plus tomatoes in bed #1. The tomatoes are Heinz, Glamour and Beefsteak bringing the total number of tomato varieties I'm growing this year to nine. These are: Heinz, Beefsteak, Glamour, Better Boy, Lemon Boy, Big Beef, Ultra Sweets, Grape Cluster and Sweet Millions. The peppers in this bed are Ango. Other pepper varieties include Hungarian wax, bell, habanero and jalapeno.

Bed #7


Zucchini, cucumber and marigolds are planted in this new raised bed. There are already a few baby zucchini! I like picking zucchini when they are 6 - 8" long so have five zucchini plants to keep me in a steady supply. Cucumbers are grown on supports once they get big enough. I'm growing sixteen cucumber plants. Varieties include straight eight, improved long and cross country. Cross country is a semi-bush variety of pickling cucumber

Happy Gardening

Garden Gnome