Phew, I worked in my garden until it got dark today. My last post on how much is undone in the garden embarrassed me enough that I toiled from sunup to sundown today. Got a LOT done, including resting in front of the telly during the heat of the afternoon. It got up into the low 80s out there today.

First of all, I planted my new Haas avocado tree. Although it didn’t take very long, I consider that my major accomplishment of the day given how long the tree is likely to last. I have great hopes for this little dear as it has already set seven avocados. That’s two more than my mature Littlecado, which has five on it this year. I’m hoping that Littlecado, which isn’t supposed to need another tree for pollination, will enjoy having the Haas nearby and will set more fruit in the future. So far it has been a pathetic producer.

After that, I raked up fallen leaves from the Littlecado avocado and composted them. Trimmed the ferns and composted them too. Watered both compost bins. It’s time to take some compost out of the bottom trap door, but I didn’t get around to that today.

I fertilized all of the fruit trees in the back yard except the avocados, which don’t need it. Hmmm. Well, that’s not exactly right. I always plant with E.B. Stone Organic Sure Start fertilizer because it contains beneficial soil microbes and nutrients to get the plants off to a healthy start. So the Haas avocado tree got Sure Start to get it going. Then I watered all of my trees and the flower border. I admired my dwarf Granny Smith apple in particular. It has nearly 3 dozen apples on it this year. Don’t know if they’ll all make it to harvest time in September or not, but so far they look good. The Fuji seems to have set only one apple and the Gala none. Nothing from the Red Flame grapes either. I’m hoping for both grapes and Gala apples next year as it will be their third year in the ground.

I took down the string and wooden trellises from the spent sugar snap peas (I pulled the pea vines, which were covered in powdery mildew, and put them in the trash two days ago) and put up a new string trellis for my pole beans. Planted 60 Blue Lake Pole Beans and 10 Scarlet Runner Beans.

I harvested the last two Candid Charm cauliflower heads to make room in the raised beds for some poor stunted seedlings that I started from seed back in February. They should have gone into the ground before this, but space is just now opening up in the raised beds. Planted 2 Black Beauty Eggplants, 2 Green Savoy Cabbages, 1 Black Krim Tomato, 1 Mortgage Lifter Tomato, and 4 Brandywine Tomatoes.

We ate the last of our Florida Prince peaches for breakfast today in pancakes, along with the first tiny harvest of blueberries and the day’s harvest of strawberries.

Over the past three years I’ve reworked my garden so that it will produce more fruits and vegetables. This is the summer that it is really starting to pay off. The amounts of my harvests aren’t large, but I love the variety of produce that I’m getting from our small yard. It’s so much fun playing with growing new varieties, and seeing what will produce in pots and planters as well as in the ground. Happy gardening to you all.