I have not been involved with the garden much during the first and second week of July. Let’s take a look at the garden state in July.

Parsnips

During the first week, I harvested some parsnips seeds as the seeds started to dry. During week 2, I harvested more seeds. I kept them in the garage to continue to dry them. I spread some in the ground where they were harvested. I spread some in my new garden as well. At the end of week 3, I cut all the parsnips plants that set seeds from the front garden. Not all the seeds have dried. But I harvested enough. I also removed some plants from the back yard after harvesting most of their seeds. I still have a lot of parsnips plants in a non-fenced area to harvest seeds from.

Sorrel

I remarked that sorrel started to grow again after July 15. They stopped growing new leaves from mid-June to the end of the first week of July. During the second week, I harvested some seeds from my sorrel plants to dry. I let some seeds fall in the ground. During the 3rd week, I harvested gallon of sorrel leaves to clean, chop, and freeze. The young leaves, were used to make salad. It is so amazing how some perennial vegetables produce most of the growing season even though I let them go to seeds. They might slow down for few weeks while they seeds. The seed stalks have some shouts growing on them. I removed some good ones and planted in my chicken garden hoping they might root. I did the transplant during the 3rd week of July. I also profited to remove weeds around the sorrel plants to give them more sun exposure. I have daylilies in the garden. They were abundant in my blackberry bed and under a shaded tree. Few years ago I hoed some and planted in my garden when I transplanted blackberry rooted tips. Now these giant daylilies seems to like their new location. For some reason some of them grow very close to some of my sorrel plants. As I cleared weeds from the sorrel plants, I cut the daylilies to the ground too. They were so thick at the base but it didn’t look like they were bothering the sorrel plants. I read daylilies are edible but I have not eaten mine yet. I have one variety that has narrow leaves and shorter flower stalk. That one tends to multiply into clumps. The ones by the sorrel grow single stems, have larger leaves, taller flower stalks and the flower stalks can be taller than 5 ft. While I cleaned the sorrel plants, I remarked that the sorrel multiplied at the ground level. I removed few rooted plants and planted in my chicken garden and in my new garden.

Raspberries

They produced berries throughout July. The kids enjoyed picking berries every other day in the front yard. A patch is right by the pathway to the entry door. The kids like to stop to pick few on their way to the car or after they got out of the car. At the end of week 3, I removed last year canes from the front yard. I cleaned the path way they occupied in the garden and tied this year canes that produced berries in spring. This year growth would produce berries in fall. The new canes started to bud already. The kids ate the berries from the canes I removed. I laid the old canes on my porch at the back to dry. I would cut them in pieces and store in a bag for barbecue. I still have a patch in the front yard to clean. I cleaned the patch in my back yard garden by cutting canes in the pathways.

 

Grape

Concord seedless grape is fruiting for the first time in three years. Concord seeded grapes has a lot of grapes this year. It fruited for the first time last year and I planted it four years ago. The other seedless varieties died to the ground during winter and they started to grow vines this season. One of them grew strong vines. I kept 3 of them. I tied them to the fence and cut their top of right at the fence level. These 3 vines should branch out. So far only concord varieties are hardy to my zone 5. I trimmed some concord vines off the fence that tried to cross the pathways.

American Persimmon

For the first time in four years it has fruits on some branches. It started to fruit after mid-July. I have seen some buds on the branches and thought they could be flowers but I haven’t seen them bloom. I have seen the same buds two years ago and it didn’t fruit. Last year I don’t recall seeing them. Last year I tried to trim the tree and cap the top to keep it short and airy. I don’t know if that has delayed it from fruiting. This year I didn’t trim. That tree doesn’t seem to be a small tree. It has the structure of a big tree. Also I didn’t fence it from bunny. I fenced it from deer because the first year deer tried to nibble of the branches. Even though I didn’t fence from bunnies, they don’t bother it. They are 4 fruit trees I fenced from deer but not bunnies. Some of them were not touched by bunnies. Included are American persimmon, Chicago mulberry, pawpaw. I intend to wrap chicken wire around their trunk to protect them from bunnies. Meldar was eaten by bunnies but it started to grow from the ground. I wrapped chicken wire around it to protect it this time.

Mint

I harvested English mint in the front yard garden at the end of week 3. They were on the pathway and I made two bunches to dry and chopped the rest to mulch my kitchen garden.

I pulled some peppermint plants and transplanted on the investment property during week 2 and they are doing well.

Egyptian onion

They seem to go dormant. They have the bulbils. At the moment the onion in the ground is not growing new leaves. That is the right time to harvest the onion in the ground for eating. But I don’t eat them. I am harvesting few bulbils to eat. They are very pungent compared to the leaves. The bulbils stalks are still green. Once they start to brown, that would be the time to harvest them for planting. Some onions grew bulbils stalks that grew few big bulbils on top. The same stalks continue and grew few more but smaller bulbils on top. They have two layers of bulbils clusters. Some onions grew bulbils stalks and large clusters of small bulbils on top of the stalks. These small bulbils each grew onion leaves.

Garlic I harvested soft neck garlic. They have been in the garlic for at least two years. They were ready to harvest earlier than that. By week two that I harvested them, most of them started to blend in with the mulch as their leaves turned brown. Some of them produced bulbils. Soft neck is said not to produce bulbils like hard neck. Mine produced few bulbils right above the ground on the stalks. Very few produced bulbils on two areas of the stalk right above the ground and few inches after that. Soft neck garlic usually produces about 4 bulbils. They are small bulbils but bigger than hard neck bulbils. My hard neck garlic produced bulbils but they are not fully ripe for harvesting yet. I like to harvest the bulbils to replant. They would grow into small garlic the following summer and into bigger garlic that can be pulled into cloves the summer after that. I usually eat garlic leaves not the cloves itself since I don’t have a lot of them. I have harvested some leaves during spring and froze for use later. I treat my garlic as perennials and consume them sustainably by only using the leaves in my cooking. I also use garlic mustard in my cooking. It is a wild mustard with a garlic scent.

Herbs

I transplanted few winter savory in my kitchen garden. I also transplanted wild thyme.

Parsley from last year is growing in my kitchen garden.

My sage decreased production this year. I mounted dirt on some branches to root them and I would transplant them later.

So far I can say winter savory and wild thyme are very reliable in my garden. They root very easily when I cut this year branch and dig in the wet dirt or last year brown branch with some root on it and at least the current year branch on it and dig in wet dirt.

Tomato

Few tomato plants are growing after mid-July in my kitchen garden. I spotted a total of 8 plants at the end of week 3 in that small area. There are barely a foot tall.

Garden Cleaning

During week 2 I removed fruit tree branches of the garden let them dry and cut in pieces before storing in the garage for barbecue. A bunny went in the garden last year and fed on the tree bark during winter. That killed most of the fruit trees in the back. This spring they started to grow back from or below the grafted area. I removed the dead trunks and let them dry for barbecue. Having fruit trees can save me from purchasing wood to smoke meat. I would just use my pruning. I also heard that the fresh branches can be used to smoke meat. They are more flavorful. But I have not tried it yet.

Redesigning my kitchen garden

I removed some parsnips from the kitchen garden and removed some weeds. I intend to redo the boarder of the kitchen garden. I lined it the boarded with red bricks to match the veneer bricks siding at the front of the house. Now I would add more bricks to narrow the garden and keep people from stepping in the garden.

In brief, July month has been about harvesting seeds from the garden and cleaning old vegetation to free space for new growth of perennial vegetables.