Veggie garden is doing well-ish. In mid April, I tossed some Bibb lettuce, multicolored carrot, green onion, and snap pea seeds into the raised bed. I’m in Zone 4B, so I knew I was taking a chance.
All three Bibb lettuces are lush, 5 of the 10 green onions are about 4" tall, 6 of the 10 snap peas are about 1’ tall (I blame squirrels for the missing 4), and I have ONE carrot.
I indoor started three zucchini, five green beans, basil, three fish pepper, three green peppers and two cilantro. I figured if I managed 1 of 3, I was doing well. Everything grew. I either gave to my sister or planted mid-May.
I direct sowed two wee broccoli seeds in a planter bag - both are growing. I did end up buying a Roma tomato and a jalapeno to put in.
For flowers, right now the usual planter display I have by the breezeway entrance is minimal - I have most planters out front of the house to keep the dang mail carrier out of the recently un-river rocked flower beds. I had wanted to plant a slew of perennials, but the gardening center is out and will no longer be ordering for the season. However, a woman down by where my daughter lives is having a massive perennial sale in mid-June. I went through the list and I think I’ll be able to do about 75% of what I want out front from her sale. Flowers AND spending time with the kids? Score!
Gardening season starts soon here in New England. Unfortunately most of our yard is shaded at least half the day and the last good garden spot is already reserved for a garage in the near future. In that space we have a raised bed and some buckets with shrubbery to plant around the house.
Before building an addition there was a decent spot we used to grow a salsa garden, all tomatoes, peppers, and some herbs. Then the kids came home from somewhere with some strawberry plants and for the last few years of its existence we had a strawberry patch.
So right now the clover is growing well in a few stands, the grass luxuriates in the alternating sunshine and non-stop pouring rain, and a bumper crop of poison ivy is sprouting around the edges. I miss gardening, given sunshine and half decent soil you can grow more tomatoes and zucchini than you can eat and give away with minimal effort.
After many years of growing mostly annuals and temperennials in the Victor/Victorian garden, I am transitioning this year to predominantly perennials, partly because the work of turning over the garden each year was getting to be a trial.
The major players now are roses, crinums, crepe myrtles (including an allée at one edge of the border) and hardy bananas (Musa basjoo, M. sikkimensis and M. “Mekong Giant”), all of which survived their first winter here in central Kentucky, zone 6b).
My lettuce never did take off (planted from seed) but everything else is finally getting into gear. The only laggers are the hab, which needs warm nights and a red bell pepper, which is just lazy. May be time to try the Crowley School of Plant Care. Pole beans are growing an inch a day, easy. The cherry tomato plants are starting to produce in numbers that they are being turned into pasta sauce as well as salad toppers.
Here’s my status report.
My snow peas are doing great - almost overwhelming us. We got our first eight ball squash. Tons of onions. The tomatoes are beginning to blossom, but way too early for fruit. Beans are beginning to blossom. We’ve harvested two heads of lettuce and I need to get another today.
We planted leeks and chives as an experiment, they both are looking good. The eggplant (2 western, two Japanese) are growing nicely but too early for blossoms.
We have volunteer cherry tomatoes and butternut squash growing like weeds. We’ve been storing up cherry tomato recipes from the Times.
The garden is on the side of our house. Back of our house is a small lawn with beds by the fence with our neighbor. The beds have become weedy, so bit by bit I’m digging them out, and I’ve planted onions (two rows) in the first bit and beans and radishes in the second. Got my first scallion yesterday, I’ll get another today for a sauce I’m making. The beans are doing great.
I’m not sure we’ll have the knockout year we had last year, but it is looking good.
More morning glories! This packet went right by my front door - hopefully, they’ll climb the railing. Such dramatic stripes!
It finally got warm enough at night to transplant the tomatoes. They’re doing very well, with some green fruit on both plants. We’re trying potatoes this year and have some sprouts poking up. The lettuce and beets are also looking good, although I don’t eat beets. The pear tree has fruit, but it remains to be seen if my spraying will keep the coddling moths at bay.
The peonies and roses seemed to explode into flowers this year. Actually, everything seems unusually fecund.
Just picked 16 cucumbers , they sprung up over two days. Also quite a few bees hanging around the blossoms so that is a good sign for a lot of cucumber salads.
Do you make pickles too?
No , no one wants pickles in the family.
In other news does anyone know what these are?
Any idea ? Any idea ? - Album on Imgur
There are a lot of them connected by a root network greoing in a planter box (its 10 by 6 foot ) . Almost papery coating with jelly interior and hard shell like where the black bits are.1 inch long
They were coming up to surface around the base of a jalapeno plant but are not the jalapeno.
The planter box is under a magnolia tree and near some other shrubby tree things and in a space where some sweet potatoes where last year. I’d say 30-40 of them growing and seem to have more roots growning off one end.
Doesn’t look like magnolia pods as far as I can google.
I do refrigerator pickles, which are dead simple to make. My husband loves them. If you like pickles, might be worth a try.
Palm seeds ?
Or kill it before it grows?
Kinda reminds me of a stinkhorn egg (fungus). The “roots” could be the rhizomorph.
Try bisecting it length wise and compare to google images of stinkhorn eggs.
Awesome thanks, those are what they are. I guess I better kill em all before life gets stinky.
Jayzuz
I’ll take “aptly named fungus” for 500.
I get thrilled when I find mushrooms in my garden: they break the mulch down so the plants can get extra food. I’ve only found the “dog dick” stinkhorn (vs other types of fungus*) Mutinus caninus, Dog Stinkhorn, identification
*I actually found a Laetiporus cincinnatus (chicken of the woods) growing on the roots of our Bur Oak tree. I’m contemplating cooking it up or making my eldest come get it (he likes mushrooms as much as I do).
I dug them up and threw them on the mulch pile to help out there, just didn’t want them all over my jalapenos.
I just counted three baby cucumbers and two baby zucchinis.
Confession time: I always leave them on too long. How do I know when it’s time to harvest my zucchinis and cucumbers?