Friday, June 19, 2009

Garden Update 6/19/09

Between the end of school and the rain we've been having, I haven't been able to spend much time in the garden. I snapped these photos on Wednesday in between the rainstorms. Here is the south bed. Some of the garlic has scapes which we need to snip and eat. Carrots are doing well, you can see the earlier planting is on the right and has a head start on those next to them. You can also see in the back one tall red stalk. That's my red swiss chard that overwintered and is now going to seed. The yellow chard I overwintered is continuing to produce regularly. They were in different lighting conditions over the winter so maybe the yellow doesn't know it is the second year for it. To the left of the carrots are my golden beets. There is a bit of a mystery with these. I started them inside and transplanted out. However, the ones on the right were started and transplanted earlier than those on the left. Yet the ones of the left have outpaced the others. I also recently seeded another square of beets, mixing together the red and yellow seed and planting it more thickly. That way I hope to have some thinnings to enjoy.
Also recently seeded are Mizuna and more Broccoli Rabe. I seeded those thickly as well to be able to eat thinnings.
My peas are blooming, but I don't expect to get more than a handful of peas since I had such poor germination and only have about 4 plants.
My tatsoi is doing very well. We harvested some for a stir-fry a few weeks ago and it continues to grow. I also recently seeded another square with some so that when these go to seed we can continue to harvest.
My northern bed looks like all walls of water. The seven on the left are my tomatoes. The mystery heirloom and the pink heirloom are reaching out of the walls. If it ever stops raining and warms up, I'll take the walls off and stake them. The two walls on the right are my hot peppers. Behind the walls of water, I have two zucchini plants in the middle of the bed, and then my 6 kale plants. It's almost time to harvest for another dinner from these plants. My romaine is hanging on, though it is getting bitter, and the arugula in the middle of the bed is going to seed. I need to get out there and harvest it.
As I peer into the walls of water, I can see that many of my tomatoes have buds. Now if it would just stop raining and give them some more sun. About two weeks ago we planted our beans and now they're up. The Romano Beans (front) had much better germination than the Blue Lake. Some of the Blue Lake sprouted, but have no leaves. I'll need to re-seed because I plan to make dilly beans out of these.
When we transplanted the cucumbers & tomatoes, we put compost in the soil. My compost had mushrooms growing earlier in the season and now with all the wet weather, there are mushrooms growing in the garden. Too bad they're not edible. I'd covered the cucumbers to protect from pests, but when I lifted the cover, I found they were looking pretty moldy and miserable with all the wet weather. So until things dry out, we'll hope the cucumber beetles don't strike.
Now that's school is out, I should be able to keep better tabs on the garden and update the blog.

1 comment:

Marcia said...

You have an incredible amount of things planted. Feel free to bring some of the harvest when you come for a visit.