The garden at sunset

It was a lovely sunset tonight on the northern coast of California.  My wife Illijana took some photos of our gardens in the golden light of the sunset and here are a few of them.

Back flower bed

Orange reflection on the ocean

100 day peas

     Here on the cool and foggy north coast of California one of my favorite vegetables to grow is fresh shell peas.  The peas usually take twice as long to come to full size as the packages suggest, but this year they took only about 1 1/2 times as long due to our warmer than normal spring and early summer.
My favorite variety is Knight and I planted the first planting of the year on April 12th of this year.
     I soak the peas overnight to start, coat them with inoculant to help them fix nitrogen onto their roots, then put them into the soil about an inch deep.  I cover them with remay or other cloth to discourage birds from attacking the seedlings, stake them with branches or bamboo stakes, and wait.
     The first shell peas took 100 days this year, and here are pictures of the first picking.

Knight shell peas

I then spent time shelling the peas.  My dog happens to love peas so between the two of us what makes it into the bowl is reduced 10%.  Here is a picture of the shelled peas (part of tonight's dinner.)

 Bon appetit!

The July garden

The garden is in full flowering mode.  We have been busy collecting lots of raspberries (see previous Scarecrow pictures), picking loads of broccoli and zucchini, and enjoying the flowers.
Here are two views of the back garden flower bed.

This is a picture of the center bed out back which features lots of dahlias, double Shasta daisies, a Lavatera plant, and the tall spires of echium (tower of jewels).

Here is a pic of the lavatera:

Finally, not to ignore the veggies, here is a picture of the newly emerged final pea planting of the year.  These are shell peas.  Pumpkins are growing in the background surrounding the artichoke plants.  The large leaved plant in the foreground is rhubarb.