Garden photo post!

First, I just have to show off my brand new strawberries. These were a gift from my darling husband- they are called Tristans and the flowers are very nearly the same shade I use for my logo-

Isn't that beautiful? It's really very productive, and the berries aren't as good as my French strawberries, but they are so pretty and they do taste better than store bought.

Yes. I know that one isn't quite ripe- it's in TG's hand and I told her she could pick one strawberry to eat and she decided she wanted the biggest one. Even if it wasn't quite ripe.

Tristans are great for containers, and don't send out many runners- that's where my French strawberries have the edge. I can have a couple mother plants plus plants to get flowers/berries. This one did send out a couple runners, so I rooted in them in larger pots.

To root them, I mixed up some organic container soil with a fair amount of compost and some perlite to keep the pots and mix light. Because Anchorage is just on the edge of the "safe" zone for these, I plan to over winter under the porch. I took the ends of the runners with the little root nodes and pinned them down with hair pins to root. The one on the left has flowers on it now.

(yes. My yard is mostly weeds, because we eat them and they are better for bees and butterflies than a manicured lawn. Making a virtue of laziness!)

My house needs painting so badly!! But these are my rhubarbs. Plural. At the start of the year, it was one HUGE rhubarb that desperately needed to be split. The really nice thing about rhubarb, strawberries and raspberries is that with care- you can give people plants for virtually free. My husband helped me dig it up and split it in very early spring- as soon as the ground was workable. We split it into 8 parts and gave 4 of them to friends and planted the other 4- with lots of compost. They are HUGE now and I keep looking at the biggest one and thinking "I could have gotten 3 plants off that."

My raspberries!!! They are out of control and trying to take over the world!

There will be SO much raspberry jam! I posted a picture to my FB timeline, which my brother liked. I said "You're just liking it because you know TG will insist on giving you jam." and he said "I do like raspberry jam."

So.. sugar peas are a regular thing in our garden. Peas are excellent nitrogen fixers- and this year we decided to try a different kind. There are a couple of excellent Alaskan seed companies that specialize in seeds that do well in our short season- Foundroot out of Haines, Alaska is where I got my Sugar Ann snap peas-

Mine are in beds, but these would be *great* container peas. They don't grow super tall- only about 3-4 feet so they don't actually need trellising but I really like the look of those plant spirals. They are prolific. We are ALL eating handfuls of peas and loving them.

 If you like Foundroot, tell them hi from me! Maybe I'll get lucky and they'll offer me a discount next year!

Also in my garden-
nasturtiums- also from Foundroot and grown from seed, these things have gotten HUGE this year.
Lots and lots of lettuce-it makes a quick bed filler and works well in all sorts of things
Dragon carrots from Foundroot- these are actually growing very well in containers, and TG made a stew using the thinnings with their big frilly leaves and it was so good! The frilly leaves taste a bit like parsley, and the carrots have this wonderful sweet/spicy flavor that makes them a favorite.
Tomatoes- stupice and um.. I forget!
Violas and marigolds
Radishes
Sunflowers
Dark Star Zucchini- also from Foundroot, also a good container plant. The zucchini has an open bush habit so it doesn't need trellising and I grew them last year- they are delicious.