Apparently we can grow watermelons!

If you live in Miami, Los Angeles, or Phoenix, you probably don't care that us Seattle folk just celebrated our 13,232nd minute of 80° (26.6°C) temps or higher this summer.  Well it's a big deal to us and this being our hottest summer ever in the Pacific Northwest, I can finally say that I have successfully grown watermelons:

Watermelon 'Sunshine'

The watermelon vines love basking up the heat stored in the rocks I made for them.

And cantaloupes and eggplants too:

Cantaloupe 'Sarah's Choice' & Eggplant "Little Fingers'

This is a practically instant castor bean forest.  There will be plenty of seeds to share!

Ricinus communis 'Carmencita'

I was floored to see Gloriosa rothschildiana come back to life.  It didn't pop up out of the ground until mid-June but it has been making up for lost time, completely devouring this magnolia tree.

Gloriosa rothschildiana

Another unlikely survivor is this Alocasia.  It was planted in the ground last summer and left for dead when winter came.  It obviously thought differently.

Alocasia (unknown species)

Our peach tree has produced about 80 pounds of peaches - the most ever.  This one is a cultivar named 'Frost' which doesn't have the most spectacular taste but makes up for it by being resistant to peach leaf curl.

Peach 'Frost'

We're lucky to see crape myrtles bloom in September around here in a normal year but this year they're a month ahead of schedule.

Unknown crape myrtle & Rose 'Just Joey'

As are the grapes.

'Lakemont' seedless grape

I guess it's a good sign if the fish are always begging for food.

Thanks for reading!  I'll do my best to not go more than three months before the next post.

It's A Tomato Year!

Tomato 'Stupice'

I love growing tomatoes, and this slightly warmer-than-average Seattle summer has made growing them extremely easy.

Tomatillo 'Toma Verde'

Crops related to tomatoes - potatoes, peppers and eggplants - are also fun to grow but one of the best nightshade crops for us here in the Pacific Northwest is the tomatillo.  They seem to take cool conditions better than tomatoes and produce serious quantities of plum-sized fruit.  They always look gross in the produce department at the grocery store but grown fresh they look and taste amazing.

The tomatillo & tomato plants are requiring increasingly taller stakes!

The blue-purple flowers on this lettuce (not sure the variety) are almost as eye-catching as the color of an artichoke flower.  Your computer monitor (and my iphone camera) are not capable of reproducing this brilliant blue color so just use your imagination.  I could always photoshop it and saturate the colors, but I'm not that kind of blogger.

Unknown lettuce

After having a peach tree die from peach leaf curl, I replaced it with Peach 'Frost' and have been more than pleasantly surprised.  Peach 'Frost' is supposedly the most peach leaf curl resistant variety out there.  It has produced heavy quantities of peaches from the first year and isn't even growing in great conditions (partial sun, partially clay soil).  The best part is after three years it hasn't suffered from any significant pests or diseases.  The peaches themselves are not quite as delicious as I'm capable of imagining them to be, but still well worth the effort.

Peach 'Frost',

After removing the peas in early July, I planted some lettuce, kohlrabi, cauliflower, broccoli, and fennel to carry the harvest into the cool season.

I planted this red cabbage in an area of the garden composed of entirely edible yet ornamental landscape plants.

Red cabbage

Arguably the best edible landscape plant for us in Seattle is the blueberry.  Some are evergreen; the others produce brilliant fall color.  I'm growing about 10 different varieties which help extend the harvest period from early July through to late September.

Blueberry (unknown variety)

I've gotten a few small eggplants on the three eggplant plants I grew from seed last year.  They are fun to grow and overwinter easy enough in the greenhouse. 

Eggplant 'Black Beauty'

These lemons are just about ripe!  I should be able to make about one glass of lemonade with these...but it will be the best glass of lemonade in Seattle!

Meyer Lemon (Citrus × meyeri)