In this newsletter, you'll find an article on summer gardening in the mid-Atlantic and Southeast and a listing of tomato tastings and other events that we'll be attending (or wishing we were). There's also a method for roasting garlic quickly and a recipe for quick summer white gazpacho.

Thanks to everyone for keeping in touch with gardening news and questions - we love seeing your photographs! Keep them coming - we're at Gardens@SouthernExposure.com.

Check our events page for all the tomato tastings we'll be attending in late July and August. The 8th annual Tomatopalooza heirloom tomato tasting is Saturday, July 31st, near Raleigh, NC. The event is hosted by Lee Newman and Craig LeHoullier (who re-introduced Cherokee Purple and many other varieties).

We'll be bringing many heirloom varieties from this year's trial gardens to Monticello's Tomato Tasting, Saturday, August 7th. Come help us decide which are worth adding to our catalog. You can also bring your own favorites to compete.

We wish we could take the trip down to South Carolina for live bluegrass and BLTs at the SPLATT! tomato tasting hosted by Rodger Winn in Little Mountain, Saturday, July 17th. Rodger hosts the tasting at the Heritage Harvest Festival and he's one of our seed growers.

This year's Heritage Harvest Festival, Saturday, September 11th, will be on the grounds of Monticello, at the new Vistor's Center and on the West Lawn, so it's easier to take tours of Jefferson's own vegetable and flower gardens. If you've been having trouble registering, you should be able to now. Register early to get your choice of workshops!

There will be a lecture and local foods dinner at Monticello the night before the festival with Rosalind Creasy, author of Edible Landscaping, and Patti Moreno, of Garden Girl TV. This special preview evening is an opportunity to support the festival and to meet many of our presenters in a more intimate setting.

Don't forget to register for the Mother Earth News Fair, September 25th-26th, in Seven Springs, Pennsylvania, We'll be hosting a tomato and pepper tasting and selling lots of seeds and seed saving supplies.

If you thought it was time to sit back and enjoy the harvest, think again! You'd be missing out on the bounty of a fall garden. You can plant carrot, bean, lettuce, cilantro and radish successions all through the summer. Start fall beets, kale, spinach, chinese cabbage and daikons. There's even time yet to sow some summer plants - like summer squash, cucumbers and sweet corn.

Keep in mind that summer is a very harsh time to be a seedling! Be careful to keep your soil moist while the seeds are germinating. It's best to have young plants somewhere where they'll get shade relief during the afternoon.

This could be next to your tomatoes, pole beans or other trellises: when the plants are young and most in need of protection, they'll be shaded. By fall, the surrounding plants will be finished and ready to pull up to open up the area to more light.

In summer, we like to start seeds in raised nursery beds outdoors: the soil won't dry out as quickly as flats or pots would. You can put your nursery beds where there's some afternoon shade and then transplant to sunnier areas of the garden once the plants are larger and better able to stand up to the heat. Click to read the whole article, including what to sow now through fall...

We're busy cleaning our perennial onions and heirloom garlic to get them ready to send out in September and October. Order yours early as we always sell out of some varieties.

For a short time only, we're offering a special bulk size for medium and large Yellow Potato Onions. Many of you have been asking, and we've had an abundant harvest this year, so it's a great time to get started with planting your own perennial onions.

Harvesting your own garlic and wondering what to do with the smaller bulbs? We like to roast them whole: simply cut off the tops just so the cloves peek out, then spread the bulbs on oiled trays, cut side up, and roast in the oven at 350°F until they're soft - about 30 minutes. You can squeeze the garlic right out of the wrappers and use it as a spread or in dips or freeze it in zip-loc bags. We spread it on toast with a sprinkle of salt (helps keep the mosquitos away).

Ingredients:
2 large or 6 small cucumbers, peeled and cut into 2 inch chunks (pickling cucumbers work just fine)
1 medium garlic clove
1 cup stock
1 cup sour cream (or substitute plain yogurt or soy yogurt for a vegan dish)
1 tsp. apple cider vinegar
cayenne pepper to taste
1/2 tsp. ground pepper
1/2 tsp. salt

For Garnish
1/4 cup diced tomatoes
1/4 cup minced chives

1. Combine cucumbers and garlic in the food processor and blend until smooth.

2. Add stock, vinegar, sour cream, salt, pepper and cayenne. Pulse briefly to blend. Move the soup to a bowl and cover and chill in the refrigerator for at least one hour.

3. Pour into individual serving bowls and garnish with tomatoes and chives. Serves 4-6.

A friend just taught us the trick of using fragrant herbs like lemon basil, holy basil, anise-hyssop, echinacea and peppermint as filler in our bouquets! They last for ages and add to the fragrance.

Many more stores are carrying our seeds this year. If you just need to pick up a few extra packets, you can look up your local retailer and save on shipping. Let us know if there's a natural foods retailer or garden center near you that you'd like to see carry our seeds.