OK, "uncle." The Russian and Italian kales would not quit this year; Come on, it's July already! So, although they were still lovely, looking like kale palm trees in the garden, I yanked them all out this weekend. Here you see the plants, the left over stalks after the leaves were removed, and the ladies in the chicken coop thrilled with any less than perfect leaves. The huge harvest would not fit in my sink, so I rinsed the leaves in a washbucket on the back porch, chopped them, and cooked them with a bit of onion and some sausage I had on hand for seasoning. They cooked down to a lovely dinner and 5 nice, meal sized bags frozen for future use.
That left me with a clean and open garden bed. I took the opportunity to add a bit more compost and some lime, as my most recent soil test had indicated lime was needed. I also added some fertilizer, and then mixed and watered it all well. Hopfully some of this lovely rain is washing through right now! I will plant some fairly short season snap beans for right now, and hope to get a harvest and then immediately pull those plants, leaving a spot for the fall garden. If they do not ripen before I plan to plant the fall crops, I will just pull them and use them as a high Nitrogen source mulch.
Look at these beautiful figs from my fig tree! The coin is a nickle, to give you a size comparison. The color inside is beautiful, though the flavor of this variety is very, very mild. This variety does a particularly good job of showing all the flower/fruit parts of the fig.
