Everywhere we go, I keep my eyes peeled for evidence of home gardens.  A tomato cage here, a topsy turvy there, a bucket with herbs in it on someone's front stoop.  Yesterday we came across a great little garden that made use of some wasted space between duplexes. 

They had Squash or Cukes or something similar - I'm not very good at my identifications of things I don't grow myself yet:



Basil that looked way better than ours, carrots on the right, and nice looking tomato plants on the left, they even had more tomato plants than we do!



They had a topsy turvy hanging from the back porch:



and in the back yard some window boxes on the ground with lettuces in them:



The best part though, was that they were utilizing the 3 feet of space between the house and the fence to the neighbors yard:



Again, looking towards the street:



This was cross posted at www.Garden-Finch.com.

We popped down to the garden late tonight to check on things, and ended up pulling up a little bit of a harvest:



Those are purple carrots, they were tasty.

We harvested:

8 & 5/8 oz - Beet Greens
1 & 3/4 oz - Lettuce
1/4 oz - Spinach
4 & 7/8 oz - Beets
3 oz - Carrots

We at nearly everything - there's still some lettuce left over, since it was getting a bit bitter, and the Mr filled up on beet greens.

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I took a visiting friend down to the garden today mid-day, and what a surprise there was waiting for us on top of the compost pile!





It's most likely a common Garter Snake, though it bears resemblance to an Eastern Ribbon Snake as well.  It was about 18-24 inches long and it seems like he lives in the pile, since he fled into a hollow inside it when we blew gently on him.

This was cross posted at www.Garden-Finch.com.

We harvested some of the garlic, the Broadleaf Czech.  It was falling over, though it wasn't yellow.  Our theory is that we planted it maybe a bit too deep (I was trying to compensate for the harsh winter).  This was the only softneck that we planted, it did not produce scapes, the two hardneck varities did.  I'm glad we dug it up when we did, since I think if we left it in any longer, it would have started to rot.  The other types look like they're doing fine.  Here's the description of the varity from Seed Savers:

"Nice big tan cloves with a hint of red. Cooked flavor is very nice, described as mild and full flavored. When raw the flavor is hot to very hot. Obtained from the Gatersleben Seed Bank (#146). Softneck, 8-12 cloves per bulb."

One bulb we dug up a week ago, and the rest we did yesterday, we dusted them off, tied them together, strung them from coat hangers and have them drying in the kitchen, hanging from rack under the ceiling fan.  They're very pungent when first dug up, but they look great!  I'll weigh them after they've cured for 2 weeks and we cut the roots off.  I don't know if I'll try braiding them or not, I haven't decided, but I'll try not to weigh the stems.

I have to say, garlic has been the easiest thing we've grown.  Pretty much plant it, mulch it, water it once or twice if needs it, and forget it.



This was cross posted at www.Garden-Finch.com.

The Mulberries were looking ripe today finally, so we went out with the step ladder and pulled off what we could reach.  I would guess that we pulled maybe 10% of the reachable berries, maybe less - the rest weren't ripe yet.  Plus we had to stay on our side of the driveway.  We ended up with a whole quart!  There will be a few more quarts in our future, hopefully.
We'll try and make a mulberry jam/jelly/something and we'll use them in multi-berry jam/jelly/something.





This was cross posted at www.Garden-Finch.com.

We enjoyed it while it was here.  Yes, these weeds really are taller than me, but thankfully they were in someone else's plot.



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Beets!  They're not big enough to eat yet, but they're far and away superior to last year.  I took this picture for Karl, who will never see it, so I will have to go post it to Facebook.  Even I want to eat these beets. 



I spotted this little gem outside our garden fence next to the compost pile.  It's the only one I've seen in the area.  With the insane amount of rain we've been getting, the mushrooms are everywhere.  Down the paths, in the grass, in the plots, everywhere.  Dr. T?



This was cross posted at www.Garden-Finch.com.

I wish I had a better idea of how much rain we've gotten this month.  This was take a couple days ago, it was emptied about a week before that.  I'm certain we're somewhere around 7" of rain for the month so far.



And around zero sunny days.

The peas love it, and the potatoes don't seem to mind, but everything else is looking dull and not what I'd call "thriving".

This was cross posted at www.Garden-Finch.com.