Monday, May 25, 2009

Garden Update 5/25

It has been quite a while since I did a full garden update, so this will be a long post. Here is the south bed. It is pretty much filled. The garlic is doing well on the right side of the bed.
In the front of the bed are my two types of carrots: Purple Haze (left) Chantenay Red Core (right). Also in the front are two squares of golden beets (not pictured). In the middle I have one square of tatsoi,
and two squares of Broccoli Rabe. According to my seed starting chart, it should be ready to harvest as of 6/11. I think it is interesting how the seedlings are different sizes, though they were planted at the same time.One broccoli rabe is already show signs of flower buds.
There is also sorrel at a small seedling stage (not shown) and my Pot o' Gold Chard. In the back are my very sad peas. Only six plants after 3 times seeding! I've transplanted them so that they are in the same square. The good news is that then I will have room to move my basil to this bed and plant an additional tomato in the other bed. I also have 2 squares of rainbow chard (though I'm not seeing the colors yet). Two of these plants over-wintered and the red one looks like it will soon go to seed.
Finally, along the garlic is a row of spinach that is doing fairly well too.
Here is the north bed. The empty spots are for warm weather crops: tomatoes, zucchini, cucumbers & peppers.
Here's the kale at the back of the bed. The very well developed radishes at the far left. These will make way for tomatoes soon. And the arugula and freckles romaine on the right side of the bed. Inside my tomatoes and peppers (2 on the left) have made wonderful progress from a week ago. I've been helping them along with 18 hours of light. They are on to their second and third sets of true leaves and their stems are becoming more stocky. Last year I had my tomato seedlings out in walls of water at this point, but this year I'm going to be patient and wait until June. In the meantime, the tomatoes can make up for lost time.
My cucumbers and zucchini have sprouted and are beginning to show signs of their first true leaves.
I'm very pleased with all the garden progress!

1 comment:

Dan said...

I can see why you are pleased, things are really starting to fill in. All my bright lights chard looked redish for a while and then changed to the different colours. I don't recall if you started this indoors or not, maybe they just need some strong light to colour up. The tomatoes and peppers have really grown. They grow so fast I don't think there is much different between starting them a few weeks sooner or later.