Bean trellis, squash, alliums

Pole beans are finally heading up the strings and the squash beneath has taken off and provided us with some delicious, young summer squash. The squash is taking over the scattering of alliums that grew there from seed I sprinkled from leeks that went to seed last year. At least, I think they are from leeks. Some of the plants I pulled from there had garlic-like bulbs, so perhaps some crossing has occurred. At this point I am more into abundance than purity of type, so I'll keep growing these out and maybe I'll find something interesting. Last year some of the volunteer squash produced some flavorful flesh. The squash in the photo is a volunteer that seems to have butternut parentage (I grew a lot of butternut squash last year).
The young ones were of two colors, a dark and a ligther skin. The flesh was very pale yellow, like young butternuts.
The pole beans are a dry bean variety. They are grown for the dry seeds rather than the green pods, though one can eat the young pods. The beans have mottled pods with reddish coloring. I believe they are called Bird Egg pole beans. I got the seeds from someone who got them from the National Plant Germplasm System.
A grape vine and a pomegranate are beyond the beans.

Hops

Humulus lupulus 'Nugget' on the hops trellis. It is sending out side branches from which the flowers will form. The rhizome came from Nichols Garden Nursery in Corvallis, Oregon. We also ordered Kent Golding rhizomes, and they're not performing as vigorously. They'll probably get moved to a new location once they go dormant. Hops is a thirsty plant and it gets lots of deep watering and likes a good, deep mulch.

Fig - Conadria

Ficus carica - edible fig - Conadria puts out an early (breba) crop and a late crop. The breba crop has been ripening over the last week or so, a few at a time. Sweet fresh figs, right from the tree, are one of my favorite things to eat.
Figs are drought tolerant after being established. Conadria starts out with green figs, then they start to droop a little, then more, and finally turn yellow. When the fig pulls easily from the tree they are ripe and sweet. Conadria can be dried too, but I haven't tried that yet.

Other fig varieties in the garden include: Verdal Longue, Celestial, Brown Turkey Improved, and Panache Tiger. They are all young trees and it looks like the Brown Turkey Improved will fruit in the summer, and possibly the Panache Tiger.

Siberia 8 days later

Eight days later the Siberia tomato has put on quite a bit of growth.

Siberia Tomato and Top-setting onions

This little tomato plant is a variety called Siberia. It is allegedly able to keep setting fruit in cool temperatures (down to 38 ˙F).



Top-setting onions make little onion bulbils at the top of a long stem. These are just like little tiny onions and can be used to grow more onions or they can be eaten.

Progressions

Artichoke

This lovely artichoke is starting to bloom.
Just a hint of hairy purple has started to peek out of the center of the flower bud.

Garlic and coreopsis.

I left the garlic in the ground for as long as I could stand it. Gophers have recently made their entrance into the garden and garlic roots are first on their preferred menu. I lost enough bulbs to justify digging them all. The plants would have done better with a week or two more, but I lost so many garlic plants last year I couldn't stand the thought of a repeat. The garlic is curing in a dark place, and then I'll trim and clean the bulbs. This garlic area has been sown with seeds of tomato and lemon cucumber now. The coreopsis is still blooming away.