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The brown grass crunches underfoot as I cross the yard to water the garden. When I get there, I am greeted by the sight of drooping, thirsty plants, many half-eaten by the groundhog(s) I have finally managed to exclude. The bean plants have the added stress of a bean beetle infestation, leading to a record low harvest during a time of year when I should be swimming in beans.

Honestly, it’s a pretty dismal sight. Farming is not for the faint-hearted. But farmers and gardeners everywhere have a mantra you’ve likely heard before: Next year will be better.

And I have hope yet for this season, in the form of tomato vines laden with green fruits, pepper plants just starting to flower, and cucumber tendrils eagerly reaching out in search of something to climb. Most everything that hasn’t been munched on looks healthy, if a couple weeks behind normal growth patterns. Even the second planting of beans, yet untouched by beetles, is putting on fresh leaves after being mown down by the groundhog.

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I will have beans at the Broadway Community Market tomorrow (8 a.m. – 12 p.m.), as well as carrots and perpetual spinach (chard). I’ve also harvested lots of fresh rosemary, great for chicken, fish, potatoes, eggs, and bread. If I have time to print them off, you can pick up recipes for rosemary scones and perpetual spinach quiche along with the ingredients.

The market is hosting a Christmas in July event tomorrow, and I don’t know what all the other vendors have planned, but it should be fun! For some early holiday shopping, I have handmade market and water bottle bags, dish cloths, and skillet handle covers, as well as a couple bottles of garlic salt. I might pull out some other crocheted items too.

See you at the market!

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I’m harvesting a tubful of beans each week, so come out to the Broadway Community Market tomorrow morning to pick up a quart or two. They’re delicious sautéed and mixed with a bit of ginger, soy sauce, and sweet chili sauce or simply steamed with a little butter and salt (make that garlic salt!).

The first few zucchini ripened this week as well, and I pulled up another couple bunches of sweet, crisp carrots. And of course, the Perpetual Spinach chard is still going strong. It’s a great summer green.

While we don’t have any ripe tomatoes yet, the vines are heavy with green fruit that will hopefully start blushing any day now. The okra, too, shows promise, with its creamy white blooms opening up and the first little pod forming. Unfortunately, the cucumbers and peppers got off to a slow start this year, but both are finally starting to bloom.

Everything, of course, depends on me keeping the resident groundhog out. Every time I go out to the garden, it has dug another hole under the fence and nibbled more leaves off the beans and sweet potato vines. But I seem to have foiled it last night, so fingers crossed it doesn’t find another way in.

See you at the market!

We got some much-needed rain last night, and the garden is finally beginning to look like it should in midsummer, though most things are still a week or two behind. In the past week, I’ve spotted the first okra blossom, pepper flowers, and baby Dragon’s Egg cucumbers. The tomatoes, too, are finally setting fruit, revealing that I planted three Amish Paste plants in the bed of slicing tomatoes (always clearly label your seedlings, folks).

As expected, the beans have taken off after that first small harvest last week, and I have a good pile of them for market tomorrow. I’m growing two varieties, both stringless bush beans. Provider is a crisp, flavorful green bean great for steaming, sautéing, freezing, pickling, or eating fresh off the plant. The colorful one is Dragon Tongue, a yellow wax bean with purple streaks, and it can be used in all the same ways as the Provider beans. I think they have even better flavor than most green beans, especially when pickled.

I also harvested the first few carrots today, and I’ll have them at the market tomorrow. The orange variety is called Chantenay, chosen because it grows well even in our Virginia clay. And I seem to have a theme going, because the purple ones are Purple Dragon carrots. Despite their plum-colored skin, they are bright orange inside.

So, tomorrow at my market table you can find beans, carrots, and chard, as well as crocheted and knitted items.

(And since I know you’re wondering, according to the Chinese calendar, 2023 is actually the year of the rabbit, which I believe makes next year the year of the dragon. I’m sure I’ll have plenty of dragon-themed produce then, too!)

See you at the market!