Mortgage Lifter – The Salem Garden

Good Morning! Happy Sunday! The sun is out and I’m ready to rock and roll out in the garden this morning! We’ve had pretty crazy weather here in Salem, Massachusetts. It’s often been sunny out, but then it rains. Then it rains torrentially, then the sun comes out. Then we have a thunderstorm. Then it’s sunny. It’s been pretty weird.

Since we’ve had so much rain we have lots of fungi scattered everywhere. This grass was freshly cut yesterday afternoon and by this morning this guy (and several of his friends) had appeared.

Down in the garden, the staked tomatoes are staked. I’m going to do a bit more pruning today. I’m taking away the bottom branches in hopes of keeping the diseases off of the plants. I wish I’d done a ground cover. If I find salt marsh hay in my travels today I may still add some in around these plants.

Good morning girls!

Tomatillo, that I started from seed. They were spindly, sad seedlings and I thought that they were a lost cause but I plunked them in anyway and here we are. I think I’ll spread them out a bit and see what we get.

We have tomatoes! This is “mortgage lifter.” Their said to reach three pounds and taste wonderful. I’m very excited about these! Notice the little velcro ties? I’ve never seen these before so I thought I’d give them a try. So far so good.

The brussel sprouts look happy…

as do the shallots.

And another sweetie tomato seedling that I’d given up for lost. Plants are more resilient than we think sometimes!

Cabbage, with cosmos for color…. Someone thought the cosmos were a weed yesterday, lol. He put them back.

More fungi… at first glance I thought that this was one of my long, skinny friends with a stripe on it’s back. I was pretty happy when I realized that it wasn’t.

Cauliflower is flowering. I’ve never grown cauliflower before and we love to eat it! Bush beans are coming along nicely. The snapdragons self seeded to help light up the chicken coop steps. The peas did their thing… they climbed in spite of the wind and rain! Horseradish…Banana Pepper..
Bee Balm ready to flower… and a greeting by the shyest cat in the world when I came back inside. See, family and friends, Mittens does exist… just a few of us ever see her.