Friends, I do believe this is the my first garden update of the summer.  How is this possible?  Oh my.  There is so much happening out there right now that I struggle with where to begin.  Let us begin with the herb garden…

I am trying out some new herbs in our herb garden this year and, although it appears to be quite “junglish” right now, I am happy with what is coming out of it at this time.

We are growing lemon balm for the first time this year, and I have begun drying it for tea and some other medicinal salves I hope to make this winter.  Lemon verbena is also new to our herb selection this year, and I have a liqueur in the works right now.  I promise to share the details of this venture as the process nears an end in three weeks. We also grew quite a bit of stevia this season, and this week I ran it through our dehydrator and then our spice grinder.  We now have a fine stevia powder to use in drinks throughout the remainder of summer and into fall.

Next, along the south side of our house, we have a raspberry bramble that is booming this year in a way I have never seen.  The bees flock to the raspberries each day, and at any given time we can count almost 50 of them swarming the forming fruits.  I cannot wait to see the bounty we receive from these plants this year.

Our apple trees are actually producing some fruit this year, which is very exciting.  However, the Japanese beetles have slowly began taking them over, and each day I find more and more leaves have fallen prisoner to their wrath.  I fear we may lose all our apples before fall.

Finally we move into the main garden space where our beans are also finally coming in.  This year we are growing Bountiful, Purple Pod, Golden Wax, and Dragon Tongue (our family favorite) with it’s beautiful purple stripes.

The extreme amounts of rain this summer have led to some of the tallest tomato plants we have ever had, but unfortunately they bear very few fruits.  My hunch is the cool temperatures this summer have inhibited fruit production on these plants.  My hope is as the temperature rise this week, we may see some tomatoes begin to form.

Thank you for joining me on my first garden tour of 2015!  I promise it will not be long until we venture into the garden again.