Potato Harvest Smashed Potatoes

Don dug a bunch of potatoes this week so we made a feast of smashed potatoes with rosemary for a family brunch.  Delicious! 

Autumn Flowers

Autumn crocuses

Perennial sunflowers

Rudbeckia and nasturtiums

Rudbeckia, nasturtiums, and cosmos

A Fall Crop of Broccoli

We've got several large pots on the patio filled with individual broccoli plants.  This is the first to starting heading up for a fall harvest! 

Autumn Fruits

Today's Harvest: Italian plums and a really large Rescue pear

Mid-September Gardens

Still lots of lovely growth this month!

The scarlet runner beans extended tipi is about 10 feet tall now.

Sunshine in the Summer Gardens

Black-eyed Susans (Rudbeckia) in front of the vegetable beds

Divina butterhead lettuce and Umpqua broccoli seedlings

Sorrell, savoy cabbage, red cabbages, and fall spinach

Onions, leeks, and pole beans

Cosmos in the carrot beds

A new planting of carrots and onions for fall

Square foot garden bed with new carrots, beets, spinach, and cherry tomatoes

Black-eyed Susans , nasturtiums, and vegetables in all their glory

The full view

Volunteer Sunflowers

This is one glorious cluster of volunteer sunflowers that self-seeded from prior years.

7 Peaches and 35 Plums!

The harvest continues!

40 Plums and a Peach

Today's harvest: 40 Hollywood plums and 1 Frost peach!

The Hollywood plum tree is full to overflowing this year with many delicious plums.  They've been ripening for the past couple weeks.  We've eaten several and have given away some to friends and neighbors already.  Today I harvested forty of them to slice and dehydrate for some nicely sweet-tart snacks for enjoying later in the season.  There are still lots more to harvest over the next few weeks.

We have about two dozen peaches on the Frost peach tree this year, the first year it's started bearing fruit.  They are very gradually ripening one by one, and each day one of them drops for us to gather and savor as a delicious offering from the peach gods.  A single sun-warmed and ripened peach is an amazingly delectable delight!

First Cucumber!

The first cucumber of the season!  It was slow to warm up this summer, but we now have a few cucumber plants that are finally producing.  Let's hope for a sunny September!

Plentiful Peaches

Breadseed Poppy Harvest

I harvested a few of the breadseed poppies that have dried on their stalks.  It's amazing how many little seeds are in just one pod. 

One pod, one handful of edible poppy seeds!

Carrots and Leeks!

Crocosmia 'Lucifer'

The crocosmia is in full bloom this week!

Peaches and Plums

The Frost peaches are starting to ripen!

The Hollywood plum tree is loaded with plums this year.

Carrots and Radishes

Tonda di Parigi carrots along with Sora and French breakfast radishes

While tending the garden this week, I pulled one perfectly rounded Sora radish along with a few elongated French breakfast radishes.  Then I pulled a few carrots in another bed where they needed to be thinned.  I had forgotten about planting these rounded 19th-century Parisian heirloom carrots and was delighted at how charming they all looked together.  They made for a nice afternoon snack!

Tiger Lilies!

These beautiful orange tiger lilies are just beginning to bloom. 

This is the tiger lily plant, just a few days before blooming began.

Peacock Orchids

The lovely peacock orchids, aka Gladiolus Acidanthera, are just starting to bloom. 

These tall and graceful acidanthera are blooming in a small pot on the patio.

Crocosmia

A lovely cluster of crocosmia 'Lucifer'

Orange crocosmia blossoms

California Poppy!