Tomato plants are about a foot high and blossoming; everything else looking pretty good. Harvested one crop of greens; it seems that the crushed eggshells actually keep the slugs at bay. LOTS of strawberries this year, so breakfast has been a real treat. Peonies and roses are perfuming the house. High 80s forecast for the weekend.
It’s been chilly here - in the 50s and 60s the past few days. The radishes, snow peas, and microgreens are coming along nicely, the beets reasonably well, and the carrots seem to be slow and spotty (and one of the 3 varieties, Atomic Red, doesn’t seem to have germinated at all). The broccoli and the 2nd round of melons are just starting to sprout (I only planted them and the microgreens a couple of weeks ago).
However, the various tomatoes and peppers and basil that I direct-sowed are doing jack-squat. Is it because it’s been so chilly, and I should just be more patient? At what point should I decide that they just aren’t going to germinate, and plant something else there? My new batch of seeds arrived today (more broccoli, broccoli rabe, kale, cauliflower, romanesco, cucumbers, mixed summer squashes, cabbages, and eggplants) and I am trying to decide what to plant now, and what to save for later in the summer after, say, the radishes or some of the greens or the initial round of broccoli have petered out.
And I need to figure out where to plant whatever new stuff I decide to plant now - maybe the cucumbers in the row where only a couple of the Armenian cucumbers survived? The squashes and/or eggplants in a row on the other side of where the melons are starting to sprout, on the theory that I will have to build some kind of trellis in between the two rows? Any trellising tips, or am I just going to have to wing it?
So does the circus. Well, those that still have elephants. I’m told elephant poo is THE BEST THING for growing watermelons.
Anyone - after a week’s absence the bok choy is in full flower, the other greens are growing, the lettuce is attempting to recover, and the weeds are flourishing.
It’s nice to have some fresh greens again. My supply of frozen ran out several months ago.
Got my first strawberries this past week. Lost most of the lemon cukes to a groundhog. Corns sprouting. The boy and I are ready to take the next step on our forest garden. Lovin June so far!
Had fresh spinach and bok choy along with some green onion in my noodle soup today! It’s so nice to have fresh green stuff again!
I have a nice, smallish strawberry patch that I haven’t gotten strawberries from in the last two years. The birds always get to them first. I have a robin and cardinal family that nests in my mulberries. Plus scores of mockingbirds and starlings. By the time I see a piece of red in the patch, the strawberry already has a hole poked in it. It’s kind of cool that there’s a bird party in my backyard come strawberry time.
Again the mint died in my front lawn. The recently planted Chocolate mint is gone as is the peppermint that was planted a while ago. The spearmint planted at the same time as the peppermint continues to live and has gone into a few mango mint smoothies. Monday I will try yet again to get my front lawn undead and de-weeded. More oregano and thyme. I’ll also get more Chocolate Mint because they rock. I will put them in the back. In the shadow of the house.
For the first time in 4 years of gardening, my tomatoes are flourishing. I have actually had to trim them back. Green beans are coming in. Picked about 2 quarts today. Bell and hot peppers are starting to bear fruit. Butternut squash is crazy. I lost count after twenty. Parsnips are just starting to come up.
Tore out my front side yard and built up 3 raised beds. I now have 3 pumpkin, 3 yellow squash and 2 zucchini coming in.
Today I planted seeds for cucumbers, eggplants, mixed summer squashes, romanesco, and cauliflower, plus a basil plant, and bought chicken wire to make trellises for the peas (and eventually for the cucumbers, tomatoes, eggplants, and squashes - I’m an optimist). Tomorrow we buy wood and some kind of nails or hooks. Wish us luck - we are basically winging it with the trellises!
Today we (OK, mostly Tom Scud) built a trellis for the peas and cucumbers! 2 x 1s, metal brackets, screws, chicken wire, and zip ties, screwed into the sides of the raised bed. It ain’t elegant, but hopefully it will work. We ran out of time and daylight, or there would have been another one for the eggplants and squashes. And if the tomatoes start to do their thing, maybe one for them, too.
Got the last third of the garden weeded, and got the trellises up but not fully braced. Got overheated and tired and had to move on to other chores.
I plan to get the warm-weather seeds in by the end of the week. Beans, squash, and cukes.
Picked the first handful of radishes today. For those of you who have done this before, is there any semi-reliable way to tell which ones are ready to pick if you don’t see the radish tops sticking up from the dirt? Or is the only way to pull them up and hope for the best? (Same goes for beets and carrots, although those will be a while.)
Also, any interesting uses for radish greens? We were making a pasta and broccoli rabe dish for dinner tonight, so I just threw the radish greens in with the broccoli rabe, but anything else?
With the radishes I planted, I’d do a row a day for 3 days and then picked them in the order they were planted.
You can brush the dirt away from the top of the root to get an idea if it’s thin and stringy or formed into a ball. If not done yet, replace dirt. Don’t go too deep, but the top part of the root has few roots to disturb.
I treat them like turnip or collard greens. They can be intense by themselves, I sometimes mix them with other greens.
Thanks. This looks yummy, too. I guess I just never thought of using the greens, because the radish greens you see in the grocery store don’t look very appetizing, but these sure did!
I currently have a hedge of what are supposed to be microgreens, but aren’t looking so micro anymore; another hedge of spicy braising greens; and a hedge of radishes.
However, it’s pouring cats and dogs outside, and we have flash flood and tornado warnings. The raised bed where the greens are seems to be OK for now, but the one where the broccoli and cauliflower and romanesco are looks pretty waterlogged. I hope this rain doesn’t keep up for long, or we may have broccoli sprout and mud soup.
Also, I swear, every single squash seed germinated - I only planted half the packet (gave the other half to a co-worker), but I now have squash sprouts every inch. I am going to have to give them away to co-workers, because no way is there going to be enough space for all these squash plants! I have 5 takers in my office so far, but the garden is going to have to be slightly less waterlogged before I tromp out there to pot squash seedlings.
Is there anything I can do to mitigate the flooding in the raised beds? Hopefully the rain lets up soon, and it dries out a bit by tomorrow…
Drill drainage holes? I dunno.
I’m a bit south of you and we’ve had monsoons, too. Some of my seeds washed out of where they were planted and I have various things now sprouting randomly all over the garden.
Well, as of this morning there is no standing water in the raised beds, so I think we’re going to be OK if we don’t have a few repeats of last night. It’s going to be awfully muddy out there, though!
One of the features of raised beds is that they don’t get waterlogged. The downside is that you have to water more often when its dry.
-August West, owner of ten 100 sq ft raised beds
The backyard dried out enough for me to do some weeding. Lots of weeds back there.
The beans, cucumbers, and squash are starting to peek above ground. Got the carrots, parnsips, chard, and other stuff I planted a couple weeks ago thinned out. The bok choy is pretty much done and gone to seed, took the last of it out and will freeze it tomorrow morning. Also thinking of pulling the spinach. It’s not gone to see yet, but the excessive wet is causing some yellow leaves and I should probably pull it sooner than later.
Planted another row of bush beans where the bok choy was.
Went to apply the coyote scented critter repellent and while doing do the shaker lid flew off the bottle and the [del]shit[/del] “urine imbued granules” sort of dumped out. Tried to scatter it about a bit better, but oops! Near the end of it anyway.
Then I found out the new bottle isn’t “granules” you sprinkle. It’s liquid that needs diluting. Oh, well, guess I need to find a spray bottle for next time…
And boy, does it ever smell like a big dog took a whiz back there!
Pulled some of the radishes (which are basically a hedge by this point) tonight and made radish leaf pesto with other stuff we had around (a bit of fresh thyme from the garden, and much cheaper Costco Asiago and walnuts rather than Parmesan and pistachios). It was tasty, and I probably should have thinned out the radishes much harder and earlier than I did, because they are basically a hedge right now with roots that didn’t really turn into radishes in many places. I just have a hard time making myself thin vegetables if I don’t know what to do with the ones I’ve thinned - can’t bring myself to compost them.
I think tomorrow I will basically pull all of the rest of the radishes and make more pesto for the freezer, and maybe a batch of Bengali sautéed radish greens.
What should I plant once I have emptied out the row of radishes? Maybe transplant some of the broccoli or tomatoes that also need to be thinned out? Alternately, what can I do with thinned-out tomatoes or broccoli shoots? Broccoli shoots could just be cooked and eaten as-is, no?
I have also potted up a number of mixed zucchini and other summer squash seedlings and given them away to co-workers (6 so far), but there will be more where that some from. I will also need to give away or toss broccoli seedlings, heirloom tomato seedlings, more squashes, and possibly eggplants, cucumbers, and/or melons, depending on how they come along. Hardly anyone I know has both space and interest in planting vegetables.
I feel like this sort of endeavor is ripe for its own local message board for giving away/swapping veggie seedlings - are there already such things that I’m not aware of? Any local folks have interest? I have even tried to give away seedlings to the other folks who have the remaining plots in my community garden (and haven’t planted anything so far), but they haven’t taken me up on it. What’s up with that?
Also, anyone have interesting recipes to share for stewing greens?