It’s hard to believe that it’s already July! We have been continuously harvesting greens, radishes, broccoli, chard, kale, strawberries, raspberries, and nasturtiums. Everything is getting big and a lot of the lettuce has started to bolt.

We got some weeding done in the garden this weekend, as well as some maintenance and seed starting. I pulled out a lot of lettuce plants that had bolted, leaving one of every variety or so to go to seed for seed saving. In place of the ones I pulled out, I planted radishes, carrots, spinach, bok choy, and romaine. Not sure how well they’ll do in the heat, but I know spinach is still good after it starts to bolt, and romaine is heat tolerant. We still have lots of lettuce to eat for salads, and it’s a bit more manageable now. I wish we’d picked more of it before it bolted, but we tried calling the food bank and homeless shelter last week and haven’t heard back. We’ll hopefully be donating extra produce as we get it.

I started another round of seeds in a seed starting tray as well: arugula, broccoli, fennel, basil, brussels sprouts, and quinoa. The quinoa I planted in the garden (twice) has only sprouted one plant so far, so I’m not sure what’s wrong and will try starting in a hoop house instead. We also got new seeds, so that may help. We’ve been harvesting and replacing broccoli and harvested our first snowball cauliflower today. With each harvest of the entire plant, we replace it with broccoli or cauliflower starts. Some of the cauliflower is getting big, and I love the purple kind! We’re trying to wrap the heads with leaves to protect them from sun, but it’s actually been overcast and cool for the last several days. The tomatoes and tomatillos have both formed dense jungles and are starting to set fruit.

About a week ago we planted the last bed of the garden, between the hoop house and compost bins. In it, I planted out some cherry and roma tomato starts that were quite rootbound and small, and a couple broccoli and cauliflower starts. The zucchini and squash are all taking off and growing outward. The zucchini are flowering and forming little baby zukes, yellow ones seem to be the fastest growing. Flowers are starting to bloom along the edge beds: sunflowers, nasturtiums, california poppies, and one red/purple poppy, adding color to the garden.

I managed to stop by the community garden this weekend and harvested a TON of fava beans. We have been sharing with friends and still have a big bag in the fridge. I love steaming them, shelling, then cooking for a couple minutes in olive oil and herbs. I am going to look for some fava bean hummus recipes this week. That sounds good! We’re still harvesting broccoli from one huge plant in the community garden, and will need to plant where the fava bean plants that I pulled out were. There’s still some fava plants left for another big harvest.

This week we hope to get the melons planted in the hoop house (long overdue!) and rearrange things in there a bit. Now that the plants are bigger, it will be a bit more crowded.