The 2012 Kitchen Garden Inventory

Now that we have hit the midway point in the month of July, it's time for me to take my annual inventory in the gardens. Unfortunately, I am still planting down in the big garden, but the kitchen garden at the house is complete for another Summer. This garden faces south and receives full day sun. Logically, this is where I plant all of the heat lovers. Here is a listing of everything residing in the 2012 kitchen garden:

Seed

• (8)Garlic - "Chesnook Red" - Down to Earth
• (8)Garlic - "Nootka Rose" - Down to Earth
• (8)Garlic - "Silver Rose" - Down to Earth
• (10)Cucumber - "Russian Pickling" - Seed Savers Exchange

Plants

• (2)Winter Squash - "Bush Delicata" - Mountain View Farm
• (2)Winter Squash - "Waltham" Butternut - Mountain View Farm
• (2)Winter Squash - "Orange Sunshine" Kabocha - Mountain View Farm
• (1)Tomato - "Galina" - Hayhurst
• (1)Tomato - "Valencia" - Mountain View Farm
• (1)Tomato - "Fantastic VF" - Hayhurst
• (1)Tomato - "Matina" - Log House Plants
• (1)Tomato - "Black Pear" - Log House Plants
• (1)Tomato - "Moonglow" grafted - Log House Plants
• (1)Tomato - "Copia" grafted - Log House Plants
• (1)Tomato - "Julia Child" grafted - Log House Plants
• (1)Tomato - "Black Krim" grafted - Log House Plants
• (5)Kale - "Toscano" - Log House Plants
• (10)Onion - "Mars" - Hayhurst
• (12)Onion- "Frontier" - Hayhurst
• (2)Morning Glory - "Feringa" - Log House Plants
• (2)Morning Glory -"Heavenly Blue" - Log House Plants
• (1)Morning Glory- "Mixed Colors " - Log House Plants

Here are my two "Bush Delicata" plants. The very first male bloom opened today and I can see immature female fruit at the crown of one of the plants.

These are my two poor old "Waltham Butternut". They are alive but not exactly thriving. They just hate getting transplanted so I really need to grow my own plants from seed next year like I did in 2010.

Here are the "Orange Sunshine" Kabocha. As you can see one plant is much bigger than the other!

Here are the "Silver Rose" garlic plants. They still haven't reached the stage where half of the leaves are yellow, so I haven't pulled them yet. From what I can see though, the bulbs look to be sizing up nicely.

Here is my row of  "Frontier" yellow storage onions. The bulbs are starting to grow, but seem to be a bit smaller than my old favorite "Prince" that I have grown the last few years.

Here's a close-up.

As always, the "Mars" red storage onions are growing like crazy. They are such a reliable large size onion.

The tomato plants are starting to get covered in pretty yellow blossoms.

My little "Fantastic VF" tomato has already set a few fruit.

The kale are so glad to be finally planted in the ground after spending way too much time in their six pack cells. I am pleased that last week's heat didn't seem to bother them at all.

The cucumbers have finally taken off. They loved last weeks heat, doubling in size and turning a dark, healthy green. Hopefully it won't be too much longer before they have grabbed a hold of the trellis.

Each year it seems that I have one volunteer plant come up in the garden. And each year that plants out performs all of the other plants that I have internationally sown. This year's overachieving volunteer is this pink strain of morning glory "Mixed Colors". My one plant has climbed onto my new tower and is rapidly covering up three of the sides. It is such a pretty shade of pink and I am thankful to have something performing so well in this challenging year. As always, mother nature is a better gardener than I am!

Next to the fourth side of the tower I planted two plants of morning glory "Feringa". I grew this variety in 2010 and just loved it. It is a mix of deep purple and pink blooms and will look really nice paired with the volunteer plant.