garden update: mid-summer

As a follow-up to yesterday's tiny taste, here's a huge main serving of what's up in the garden. Summer has come to San Francisco! At least, this week.

Seriously, it's been heavenly here: warm, so the plants and people are happy, but not like crazy mid-west heat-wave hot. It's been lovely, which makes a girl want to linger over watering and finally bring the camera outside again!

hello morning glories (they're wild here)

herb city (who needs some mint? sage? thyme??)

The timing of Summer in SF is, as you must know by now, a tricky thing. The reliably gorgeous late Spring can trick you into planting heat-loving plants, only to have them go all yuck in the fog. (See: last year.) This year, I decided to wait out the fog a little and hold off on the big-time Summer stuff (tomatoes, squash, etc) until now-ish or a little later. Still figuring this place out.

But, even though Summer here is elusive and tricky, it's undeniable that it's a time of transition and overlap out back. Spring plants have been holding on for a long time (we still have peas & favas!), the kale seems to know no season (hello harvest!), and the squashes (summer & winter) are off and running.

It's a season of many players:

1. The pretty

sweet peas & sunflowers
(plus our other "weed": nasturtiums)

'cupani's original'

'april in paris'

'cupani's original'

volunteer blue borage (ok, it'll be prettier when it blooms!)

super baby sunflowers

the promise of blackberries

2. The yummy

Alpine strawberries

"regular" strawberries

3. The Future

more blackberry promises (aka bee mecca)

wee, delicate green bean vines

...and the wee beans

future snacks (aka sunflowers)

summer squash (we're growing regular zucchini & 'ronde de nice')

future slicers
(for Kristen's dad;
I've learned, begrudgingly, to limit myself to cherries and other small tomatoes)

4. The New

new standing-height bed for herbs, lettuces, overgrown(!) spinach and blueberries

new native plant bed

so fuzzy

love this foliage

'starlight' echinacea

5. The Old

the bolting kale & the very tall, very senior peas.
i'm saving seeds for both.

beautiful bolting lettuce.
it will give me seeds for my new favorite lettuce, so it can stay and do its thing.

cilantro, in flower

dill, in flower.
these you can dry and put whole into pickle jars. pretty no?

6. The tenacious

lemon verbena, from the previous homeowners
we've built a deck in its sunlight, squashed it with bags of soil.
it wont stop, and it smells soooooo good.