For gardeners, July is the ‘kicking back’ month, isn’t it? The bees and butterflies floating over the raised beds seem to be as happy as I am as I’m relaxing in a chair in the shade or kneeling in the garden doing a little harvesting!

Our family is eating a lot from the garden at this time of year. My specialty is summer salads. A combination salad with baby Little Gem and Salad Bowl lettuce, baby sorrel (a bit tart, but its pretty lime green leaves and flavor are a nice foil to the other flavors in the salad), endive, escarole, parsley, green onions, and chopped purslane (I still call it a weed, but it adds some spunky nutrition) is wonderful! The purple Trionfo Violetto pole beans growing up my ornamental trellis and the bush varieties, Romo II and Tavera are fabulous this week, and most of them don’t make it anywhere near a steamer, because I also chop them and eat them fresh in salads. My daughter, Sophia, loves steamed Italian Nero Toscana kale chopped with garlic and sautéed in olive oil as a fall dish. But, sometimes she can’t wait until cooler weather to enjoy it. We recently made a dish of it for her using the burner on the outdoor grill.

Watering is the biggest chore at this time of year. It’s important to nurture your crops through the heat, watering as often as needed, even twice a day if you see something start to wilt. Some crops have bolted by now, so I’m pulling up the extra radishes and spinach that didn’t get eaten. The arugula has bolted, but the green onions next to it are at their peak and ready to harvest. Despite the heat, I am planning a little more planting soon. I’ll make time to sneak in another crop of arugula and lettuce now, and maybe another round in a couple of weeks, because I do love my fresh greens!

My other July chores include deadheading flowers to encourage a second flush of blooms. I do this with any flower that would be more attractive without its seed heads, will produce a second flush of blooms, or that I don’t want to reseed in the garden.

Are your spring-planted pansies and violas getting a little long and scraggly? Now is a good time to cut them back. You’ll notice that many of your plants have fresh leaf growth near the base. If you cut the plants back now, you’ll help them redirect their energy into producing a new round of compact blooms in fall.

The delphiniums and cosmos look gorgeous right now! I also adore the Love in a Mist, because it makes such a soft fluffy background in the flowerbeds. The calendula is stunning–there’s a wide swath of it in the border that’s as radiant as the sunlight itself.

Here’s a sneak peek at a new zucchini variety we’re trailing. It’s already produced some rather large squash, so we’re impressed by its early harvest.

See my trailing cucumber plants here? Next year, I’m thinking about trying cucumber frames to support them. I’ve seen how you can take old picture frames and line them with 3″ squares of wire. Once raised off the ground, the cucumber plants will grow up through them, using them for support, then the fruit will hang below it, growing straighter, and be off the ground.

The garden is always a work in progress. Now, there’s time to sit back, relax, and enjoy it, but as I do, I always think of new things to try as I’m admiring the beautiful growth!

The annual Botanical Interests summer picnic for employees was held at Judy and Curtis’s house today. It was a bit warm with temperatures in the low 90’s, but very pleasant in the shade under the huge willow tree.

Once everyone arrived, we began our traditional ‘Name that Plant’ contest. Employees were given a sheet with multiple-choice answers then walked the vegetable/herb beds and the perennial border, trying to guess the names of the plants that were marked with numbered flags. There were a few participants that correctly identified all twenty-four plants on the quiz and won bragging rights for the day. For those that missed a few (or more), it was fun and educational. Seeing how delicious or gorgeous some of varieties looked, hopefully inspired some of them to try some new things in their garden in the future.

            Lunch was a feast from Qdoba Mexican Grill, and the key lime pie, chocolate chip cookies disappeared pretty quickly as well as the homemade brownies whipped up by Judy and Curtis’s daughter and aspiring chef, Catherine. As a bonus, we were treated to fresh snow cones made by Judy and Curtis’s other daughter, Sophia.

            This picnic every year is a time for us all to get together and have some fun, but also a time to talk about how the just-ended season went. Our 2011 wholesale season begins in July Watch the website for the new varieties to be available soon online.

Try as he might, Curtis did not escape the ‘Gatorade Dousing’ that is also a tradition at this picnic. After a couple of failed attempts, Corey from Accounting managed to sneak up on him from behind and dump a bin of half-melted ice over Curtis’s head! It’s our mischievous way of saying, ‘Thanks, Coach…for another great season!”