Solstice gardening and beyond!

 by Diana McCollum

Summer time for our household is gardening time. When we moved from the high desert of OR my husband said No more vegetable gardens. As he didn't have much luck growing vegetables at 3500 ft and in a dry climate. So what do we have now that we live in northern CA? 

A vegetable garden!!!

 We have all kinds of beans, eggplant, tomatoes, corn, Thai chilies , sunflowers, three kinds of squash, pumpkins, lettuce, radish, onions, potatoes, fennel, all kinds of herbs. That's not even mentioning the 2 cherry trees, pear tree, fig tree, apple tree that have to be taken care of and harvested. Yikes! Definitely a summer of gardening.

Plant and Garden expert Craig Hignight says this is the best time for farmers and gardeners to plant. Around the solstice "we get the best growth," Highnight said. "That's why we grow so much corn and soybeans in the Midwest" Pumpkins have been known to grow by inches overnight in the summer.

There are cold weather crops that are good to start at Solstice, some of the better ones are members of the cabbage family. Kale is one of the vegetables and it can even survive frosts and quite often continues growing throughout winter. That gives you fresh greens in the dead of winter time.  It is best to germinate indoors and then plant in prepared beds. 

If it is too hot the seeds may not germinate if sown directly into the prepared beds. There are a dozen plants you can plant at Solstice to harvest in the fall or winter.

Read more at Gardening Know How: Summer Solstice Plants: What To Plant On The Summer Solstice https://www.gardeningknowhow.com/special/spaces/summer-solstice-plants.htm

Come with me for a walk through our gardening areas:

The box above is fennel radish, green onions and herbs.

Box on right are cucumbers and squash.

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Tomatoes and potatoes and onions.

Tomatoes, eggplant, Thai peppers in boxes above.

String beans and peas

Pumpkin hills to the left.

Hill of Corn on right, husband is doing the three sisters method. that consists of corn, beans and squash all planted together. the corn grows up, the beans wrap around the stalk and the pumpkin or squash grow in between on the ground.

Husband's grape vines, he planted four but only two survived.

And then the sweetest thing of all in the garden, he trimmed this bush just for me!

I hope you enjoyed seeing some of our gardens (not all).

Do you plant a vegetable garden? or flowers? or both?

We plant both.

(all pictures taken by Diana McCollum in her yard)