So, a month later... this time I'll just try recapping everything and then toss the photos at the bottom. Just for a change in pace. And because I'm extra lazy today.
The tomatillos have almost all gone from flower to husk but they're still (very) slowly filling those husks in. Most of the fruit is still smaller than a cherry tomato. I've gotten several red tomatoes off the vine (probably 7-8 now) and perhaps two dozen yellow pears. The reds have slowly gotten their good flavoring (the earliest handful tasted gross) and the yellow pears are growing into it as well. So far, I haven't had anything from the garden that's FABULOUS, which makes me sad.
I harvested a lot of basil and we've had half a dozen pesto dinners from it. I still have a little basil left which will be harvested in the next couple of days for another (smaller) batch. It seems that my soil mixture was so awful in my herb garden that the turnips are all about two millimeters in diameter and my radishes are only slightly larger (but aren't good). My green onions have also been unable to flourish, leaving me solely with basil from those three boxes. When I pulled out the basil I replanted some green (and purple) bush beans that I didn't manage to get off the vine quickly enough -- they were too hard to comfortably eat but apparently great for replanting.
My bucket tomatoes are still green on the vine but boy are those vines huge! Several of them are several feet taller than I am (putting them at 7-8 feet). My blueberries have pretty well shriveled up this season. I imagine that part of this is due to not wintering well (I should have thrown some burlap over them) and part of it due to my irrigation system being broken for a month without my noticing. Our arborvitae are also struggling, but I think we'll be able to bring them back. I hope! My raspberry didn't fruit last year and hasn't fruited this year, but it has grown a rather long vine. My blackberry put out four or five long and thick canes from which I've picked about a dozen large, ripe, and the sweetest of berries. The only thing that I lament about the berry plants is that it will take an extremely long time before I can get multiple pints (or quarts) of fruit per season -- and to be honest, we probably won't be in this house when it happens.
I'm also very disappointed with my soaker hose in the garden: it doesn't have a problem with water pressure at the end but for whatever reason, most of the water is rolling off the hill away from the roots. This may be due to the soil mixture (which is similar to that in the herb garden) being poor. Next year....
