July's Garden (2026)

This has been the most amazing garden month ever. It has rained almost every day and it looks like a jungle.  

The abundance is stunning.

The paths are disappearing.

We put raked grass down as a weed mulch but the lawn is growing so rapidly, Bill can't keep up with the mowing. It was raining as he raked these waterlogged clippings and put them in the walkway. After drying enough to be handled, they will be spread to other areas but until then walking is soggy.

Even though the garden is bigger than previous years, we are still not wasting any space.

The back of the garden where the white potatoes were dug now has carrots and tomatoes (left row by the fence), green beans and corn (center row), and fall tomatoes beside the support fence (right row). The far back empty corner where the lettuce was now has tiny sprouting cucumbers.  A seed is always dropped when a spot of soil becomes available.

Earlier in the year I purchased the "end of the year close out special" of 100 sweet potato slips consisting of 4 different varieties for $25, plus $12 shipping from Sand Hill Preservation Center. It was an absolute steal; however, it is potluck - they send whatever is left, and they don't promise anything. In the past, they have always provided a good service.  After last year's dismal sweet potato harvest, it was time to find a new variety.

As scheduled, over 110 slips arrived at the beginning of this month. This area was finally tilled and became two sweet potato beds. Those that couldn't fit were squeezed into empty spots throughout the garden. The goal is to find my perfect potato and this was an inexpensive way to experiment. Sweet potatoes take 90 to 120 days to mature and there were 110 warm days until first frost at their planting time. It is cutting it close but if winter arrives early, they will just be a bit smaller when dug; hopefully, there will be a massive harvest. The best producing, tasting, and storage ones will used to start the slips next year.

Their vines grow aggressively so the garden will become even more tangled as the season progresses. These were planted below tomatoes and are already beginning to over run the row. They climb fences and will try to cover the tomatoes. I suppose less should have been ordered, but when have I ever shown restraint when buying seeds or plants? 

The Sugar Baby melons from the old seeds that I didn't expect to germinate have grown well but are very small. It seems to be the reason they weren't ever planted again. (Imagine trying to share with a family of five adults.) The tendril closest to the melon was completely brown and the underside was yellow indicating they were ripe. 

We picked two. They tasted good, not great, but were full of seeds and too small for the amount of garden real estate they covered. We will enjoy the rest as they ripen but they won't be grown again.

The garden is surprising me every day but that isn't all that is flourishing on our farm.

A baby arrived two nights ago. Mom brought him to the garden on his first day. (Bill tossed the exhausted mother fresh grass clippings over the fence.) Hopefully they were discussing how the garden is off limits. 

I never realized how much easier gardening could be if the weather cooperated. It is nice to be able to share good news and not be whining! 

Last Month's June Garden (2026)

Last Year's July Garden (2025)