After another 2 inches of rain, things are OK...

My garden sure is green after all the rain we've had.

These are Packman Broccoli. The heads are purple and about2-3 inches across. When does one cut them? I understand that they will continue to grow on the sides after the center is cut out. One head is turning greenish. Is that one past the 'use by' date????

My 4 cuke plants on the left include Boston pickling, Burpless, and Lemon cucumbers. To their right are sweet peppers, then I have white onions with their long green stalks.

The Sugar Snap peas are growing. There weren't any 2 days ago. I guess the rain is doing wonderful things for them. I hope to harvest some in the next day or two. I think you harvest when you can feel bumps in the pods. Being 'green' at growing crops, I'm learning as I go.

My latest views on July 3rd...in Maine...

I have 5 blueberry bushes to the right of my raised beds. This is Chippewa showing berries.

This is what a broccoli looks like when it starts growing.

In front there's 3 Brussel sprouts with iceberg lettuce under netting, two sweet peppers next to the netting and the snow peas starting their climb on the trellis behind.

These are my 6 Early Jersey Wakefield cabbages, the biggies, with mini red cabbage to their right. In back, along the trellis, are more tomato plants.

This cauliflower, White Cloud, is heading up so I use clothespins to pin the long leaves over it to keep it white. This is a small-head variety so when that head is about 6" across, its time to harvest it. I'm thinking next week we'll have cauliflower for supper. Again, see the DVD disks hanging alongside to deter the deer. Its worked so far. I had some deer damage to a couple of 'Sweet 100' tomatoes over a week ago but none since I put up the disks. These are from advt that came in the mail to get AOL mostly. I saved them over 4 years. I knew they'd come in handy if I ever had a veggie garden.

This is my garden on July 3rd...in Maine.

Long view of my garden beds. The arrow is pointing to the DVD disks that are hung on poles to deter deer. I have 5 poles along that side toward the woods and also some hung between beds. That's my regular strawberry bed in the front behind the short white fencing.

My herb bed has as assortment: sage, marjoram, oregano, rosemary, two kinds of parsley, with the tall ones being dill and basil right in front of it. In the back along the trellis I have a couple of tomato plants.

I keep my iceberg-type lettuce under shade netting. I removed a bit so you could see. The rains are bringing me some brown lettuce leaves. I'm hoping for more sunshine soon. The plant to the right is a Brussel sprout, again with the marigolds.

In this bed there's marigold and nasturtiums on the ends with white onions in the center front. In the next rows I have several green peppers and the back row along the trellis has 4 cucumber plants.

My peas, sugar and snap varieties, have grown so much in the rain that I'm going to have to train them back over the top. That top twine is nearly 7 feet above ground. In front are 6 broccoli plants that are just now showing some broccoli heads.

My garden today, July 3rd....

Lettuce under netting with yellow and green bell peppers to its right. Behind along the twine trellis is pole beans on the left with lighter leaves, and snow peas on the right with lots of blossoms.

My Potato patch is lots of green but no blossoms yet.

In my annual flower bed I also have Alpine Strawberries that are covered with several blossoms.

Swiss chard in front with 4 eggplants behind. I have nasturtiums in the right front square of every bed to repel bugs.

This is one of my two zucchini, Black Beauty, with marigolds in the left front square. I have marigolds in all the front left sqs, again, to repel bugs. Under the plastic are my cantaloupe plants. We're still having cool nites besides rain day after day after day.