June Pictures

It has been super rainy until this week and super hot!

I was able to harvest the broccoli crowns and a cabbage. I finally gave in and dusted them with Bt which really helped. The old leaves started turning a bit red last week, so I side dressed with bone & blood meal. Now they are very green again. Hopefully we will get more broccoli shoots now that they've gotten some fertilizer. The biggest dill plant is super pretty now and is attracting wasps (hopefully of the parasitic kind). Note to self: for companion planting to work, the herbs/flowers must be planted ahead of the vegetable. We've also had lots of turnip greens, although some of the roots have rotted due to all this rain (or slugs). I think it's about time to pull it all up as it's getting too hot for the leaves. I also harvested one, single head of romaine. Why does this plant elude me so? In the very back are okra seedlings. They are too small to see from this angle, but they soon won't be.

The potato bin is one project that got really left out in May. We've added one slat, but as you can see the potatoes have outgrown that one. I don't know how well these guys will end up doing. We should get a few potatoes though.

In this front bed is swiss chard and beets on the left. We've really enjoyed the swiss chard, but the beets are still bulbing very tiny. I probably have them planted too close together? In the middle was mostly onions, which I have pulled up. They also didn't bulb that well. But I do have some. On the right are my red gold potatoes. They should do well and be ready in another month.

The bushyness in the middle are 5 roma tomato plants that I didn't get caged. Next to them are a couple of unstaked peppers and an eggplant that I have struggled with. I am constantly spraying for the flea beetles, and I am determined. In front are two sad zucchini plants. I finally pulled them up because of bacterial wilt. The rest of this bed is 18 sweet potato plants.

In the middle here are beautiful nasturtiums. As you can see, I really only have one hill of corn that did ok. The rest withered away. I just can't get the hills to retain water. This is definitely the last year of the three sisters. On the right front hill are a few volunteer potato plants. The rest of the hills are my replantings of cucumbers, squash, and melons. These look very nice too. On the left side are pole beans and the right are pole limas which have both just come up.

I forgot to take pics of the other tomatoes and the porch plants. I will try to get those up tomorrow.

Late Planting

Today I finished replanting the squash, melons, and cucumbers. I also finally planted pole beans, pole limas, and basil, as well as a new round of looseleaf lettuce and a salad mix I got at Pinetree. I can't find sweet potato plants at this late date, but I did pick up some cantaloupe plants, so that will give them the same start my seeds would have had. The okra I planted on Friday is already sprouting. Yay for soaking seeds!

I also picked up some Bt dust for the cabbage worms, although it's probably too late, and some pyrethrien spray for the flea beetles on the eggplant. These are considered organic pesticides, and I'm a little desperate. I think that the eggplant will recover. It even looks like it's about to flower.

Hopefully I will get pictures of garden progress up soon.

Restructuring

Lesson #1 - If you neglect your garden for a month, it will be utter disaster when you get back to it.

Lesson #2 - Don't plant seeds in peat moss. It's a 1 in ten chance that they will sprout. The peat just doesn't hold moisture.

Of all the seeds I planted in the brand new bed, only zucchini sprouted. Since I was really behind in planting the second two sisters, I decided to plant one curcubit per mound. The three sisters bed was overloaded with weeds and most of the corn has withered away, so I've spent most of the morning trying to get the bed under control. The good things are that I had volunteer watermelon, pepper, and potato plants from last year. I transplanted a pepper and potato to see how they will do, and I left the watermelon and planted a few watermelon seeds around it. The other good thing in that bed is that the nasturtiums look fabulous! I can't wait to see flowers and also to see if it really helps with squash bugs.

My other big problem is flea beetles on my eggplant and cabbage worms. I successfully grew cabbage and broccoli for the first time only to have it decimated in days. I did pick some broccoli, but I'm not sure if I will recover any cabbage.

Lesson #3 - I must use row cover next year!

I have been harvesting tons of greens. I made a yummy pasta with fried garlic, onions, greens and Parmesan. Today I think we will just be basic with steamed greens and rice and beans.