I wait all year for my July garden and it’s finally here! July’s garden is a pretty magical place for me. It’s where I feel peace and promise, where I know perseverance and hope. It’s also where I can make mistakes but still end up in a good place! It’s where I remember the young girl I once was who hated sweating, who hated being outside in the yard but who can now turn a seed into a five foot squash! Gardening isn’t hard. It’s about trial and error, learning new things, and carefully tending to plants as if they were tiny babies. With a little self discipline and hard work, most any garden can become a July garden AT HOME MY WAY.
Happy July Garden
by Gina Kenney (2026)
Anticipating
the weekend on Saturday’s Eve
For a few days in the garden when I won’t have to leave
Four pints
and four quarts of the mighty green bean
Wrangling
and untangling the cucumber vines green
Across
tomato branches, creeping vines they reach
Redirecting
them carefully and trying to teach
Stay in
your lane sweet cucumber vine!
You
cannot shade the tomatoes! They are almost mine!
Beets of red and gold peeping from wells in the ground
And onions are kneeling as they pray to be found
Zinnias
are standing tall, pink, red, and white
The sweet
potatoes have blooms that close overnight
Oh happy
July garden spreading your joy
Your
gifts are as treasured as a new Christmas toy
Buzzing
bees, jumping frogs, waving tangles of plants
Cascading
like jewels and shading the ants
All
kinds of squash doubling their size overnight
Yellow
and green their glow is so bright
Cranberry beans dangle high overhead
Flat
green pods are now hot pink instead
All day
in the garden and I don’t want to leave
But darkness
is for rest and tomorrow to believe
In the radiance of the July garden, she is in her full glory
And her abundance
of gifts will keep retelling her story.
During cold winter days as she sleeps under snow
That next July’s garden seeds we need to sow.
“There are no garden mistakes - only experiments.” Janet Kilburn
I think
I could spend all day in the garden and still not want to leave. My poem is my squishy way to remember the magic
of this year’s July garden. She is a
doozy!
My July
garden looks like a jungle. It has lush overgrown
wild and wooly plants crowding each other, cucumber and squash vines stretching across other plants to be untangled and redirected, volunteer peppers growing in the middle of the bean bed, carrots gone to seed,
lettuce bolting and yet, my harvest baskets are overflowing! I am often playing "Where's Waldo" with cucumbers and this year am providing regular updates to my friends on
a new squash I am growing. They are all intrigued and entertained (as I am) with my Zucchini Rampicante (also known as Tromboncino
Squash).
The
first one started itself right dead center of my cattle panel arch. It has kept doubling in size until it has nearly
reached the ground. I bet it is five feet long! Two weeks ago, I
found three tiny baby Rampicante. Those once tiny babies are now 36” long. Last night, I spied more babies. So fun! I feel like Mr. Wilson in Dennis the Menace. My friends have made visits to my house just to see this massive squash! I feel I could plan a garden party around them! LOL The Rampicante have definitely been my shining stars in my 2026 vegetable garden.
Zucchini Rampicante are resistant to squash vine borers and I haven’t seen a single squash bug on them yet! They can be eaten when green (like zucchini) or can be left on the vines until they turn tan like a
winter butternut squash. The seeds can even be saved for next year's garden. Sounds too good
to be true! I intend to let mine grow until they reach their Butternut
Era.
Enough
of my wordiness. Here are a more few pics. They tell the better story of my July 2026 garden!
These cranberry beans start as green flat pods. They turn hot pink which is the sole reason I bought them in the first place. Pink pods? Soooo pretty! I harvest them as dried beans and they make the best pot of beans you ever had! I love to serve them with
homemade cornbread muffins!
This was my second "flush" of green beans. These are the Contender variety and are very prolific. I have a third flush ready for picking. I love them with some onion, salt, plenty of pepper, and a little olive oil - cooked down like Sunday supper green beans. Delish!
The zucchini are Dunja-D1, a hybrid. I'm sold on these zucchini. I get mine from
High Mowing Seeds. I planted these way early here in mid Missouri (April 15?) but they were troopers. The squash bugs, vine borers and powder mildew have not found them. I planted more seeds a few weeks ago and pulled the first two plants. They seemed to be tired of my garden so I gave them new life in the compost pile.
I've been grating the zucchini for the freezer, making
Chocolate Zucchini Muffins and a few loaves of plain old Zucchini Bread for the freezer. I do have an old recipe for
Zucchini Cobbler (mock apple cobbler) and I do believe its time to remake that recipe. It was so yummy. No one knew it was ye old zucchini all dressed up!
These yellow squash are straight neck. Nothing special but I love them in
Stewed Squash and now have been making lots of
Squash Patties with them. Summer wouldn't be the same without my friends, the yellow squash!
My cabbages got a very late start because they were wintersown and we had late freezes and flooding rains. However, the cabbage loopers and white butterflies haven't found them so maybe starting late worked out. Also pictured are a few zinnias that have bloomed since I snapped the pic. I even had my first bouquet in the house!
These poor onions were second year onions that I missed picking last summer. They had huge bulbs and when I found them laying down, I knew they were begging to be brought in the house.
I used those second year onions and some nice pickling cucumbers that are going crazy to make a batch of Ball's recipe for
Bread & Butter Pickles. Mmmm!
This was the first flush of Contender green beans. From 16 plants, I got nine pounds of green beans! I was beyond excited when I saw so many green beans hanging down under the plants!
From those nine pounds, I got a batch for supper plus four pints and four quarts of green beans canned. Not a bad haul!
I'm picking beets this weekend. I will either store them for roasting or make a few jars of pickled beets. I haven't decided yet.
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Beets are just the most beautiful vegetable for the garden! I always get super excited picking them. These have gotten considerably larger in the last two weeks!
Canning outside has become something both Doug and I look forward to every summer. I handle the veges and jars. Doug mans the canner. With cold beverages and some Tammy Wynette, canning outside sometimes even looks like a party!
And this is Sammy! Sammy is my garden helper. He never fails to come out of hiding when he hears me in the garden. He rolls around in the beets and even helped me dig for garlic. He is mighty cute and is his Mimi's pride and joy!
Let me know how your July garden is growing and if you are growing anything new this summer that is a happy surprise?
Continue on Happy July Garden!
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