The garden has entered into that unfortunate, rather unproductive period which marks the mid-point of Oregon summer. All of the lettuces have bolted in the long, relatively warm days, and we’ve reluctantly uproooted the lot of them today. It’s only the zucchini and crookneck squash which are fruiting at the moment. The pole beans are still climbing, as yet unflowering. Ditto the cucumbers, gherkins and melon. Some tomatos have set, but none are close to ripening. A few eggplant are developing, but they’re the size of olives at the moment. June-bearing strawberries have run their course, and the everbearings are just beginnning to reflower.
I’d like to take a moment to praise the virtues of orach. It’s a wonderful spinach-like green that doesn’t bolt in Oregon summers, and provides a great source of leafy goodness when all other salad crops are intent on going directly to seed. The leaves are fascinatingly beautiful, too, with some form of nanoscale structures that cause water to bead on the surface. If you’ve never grown orach before, you’ve been missing out on an heirloom green (purple?) that has quite a lot to offer.
