It's almost Lammas Day

Nasturtium seeds, snap pea pods, and beautiful zucchini

Have you ever heard of Lammas? It marks the first of three harvest festivals, and it's celebrated in many religious traditions. From Wikipedia:

In some English-speaking countries in the Northern Hemisphere, August 1 is Lammas Day (Anglo-Saxon hlaf-mas, "loaf-mass"), the festival of the wheat harvest, and is the first harvest festival of the year. On this day it was customary to bring to church a loaf made from the new crop, which began to be harvested at Lammastide.

I just spent some time out in my garden, pulling up bolted butter lettuce, as well as harvesting those three things in the picture above. I was pleased to see the nasturtium seeds, which I will use for next year, and the snap peas as well. And you know what I'm going to do with the zucchini, don't you? Eat it for dinner tonight!

The biggest of my six cabbages

I'm not sure when I should harvest this cabbage, since every time I go out there it looks more enticing. I also have been adding nasturtium flowers to my salads, but I just learned that the leaves are edible as well, so I tasted them. They are spicy, too. I found that the seeds can be dried and ground as a substitute for pepper. I think I'll try all those things. I love these plants!

Carol's scrumptious strawberries

After that, I spent some time wandering around looking at the things growing in my neighbors' gardens. Carol is out of town, apparently, and her strawberries are incredibly ripe and ready to be eaten. I snuck one and it was really good. Don't tell!

Colorful sweet peas

Joan's colorful sweet pea flowers grace the fence in her garden section. They are even more brilliant than they appear in this picture. It's definitely time for the first harvest of the season; I've been eating summer squash every day and my beets are ready for harvesting, but I'm not quite ready to eat them, so I hope they won't suffer from being left in the ground. I'm such a neophyte about gardening. Maybe Linda Letters will give me a tip or two.

So far this year (knock wood) I've had much less of a pest problem, although the slugs continue to snack on our goodies. The fence has kept the deer out, and this year I stayed away from the plants the bugs devoured the most (kale, collards, and brussels sprouts). I'm happy to pay for them in the organic section of the grocery store and let the experts do the work. Or get them at the Farmers' Market. The last two weeks we haven't bought anything there, since we are working hard to keep up with the food from our very own garden: summer squash raw, sliced, steamed... it's a hard job but someone's got to do it!
:-)