Mostly vegetables

'Green Twister' echinacea (cone flower)

The vegetable garden is starting to produce harvestable things.

Peas and green beans are coming on.  The 'Premium' peas I planted along a fence have been producing edible peas for almost three weeks. 'Lillian's Caseload' have been producing this week, and 'Lincoln' hasn't had a chance, because the rabbits keep eating the plants.  I probably won't plant 'Lillian's Caseload' again, because 'Premium' produces much larger pods with more and juicier peas.  As I recall 'Lincoln' from last year, they were smaller, but had lots of peas per pod and were as tasty as 'Premium'.

'Premium' peas

The 'Calima' beans, while still small and somewhat bug-eaten, are starting to flower.  

'Merlot', 'Marvel of 4 Seasons', and some romaine lettuce have been producing for three or four weeks already, as well as three kale varieties: 'Red Russian', 'Nero de Toscana' and scarlet.  The scarlet plants are prettiest and still quite small, while the 'Red Russian' is getting quite large.

Left to right: 'Nero de Toscana', scarlet, and 'Red Russian' kale

'Red Russian'

scarlet kale

'Nero de Toscana'

'Marvel of 4 Seasons' lettuce

or in the original French, 'Merveille de Quatre Saisons'

'Merlot' lettuce

I'll have to try planting the chinese (Napa) cabbage again in the fall.  It didn't produce any heads from the spring planting; just went straight to bolting.

'Hilton' Chinese cabbage

I let volunteer lettuce come up wherever it wanted to this year.  This one that found its way into the tulip bed got enourmous.

First carrots: 'Red Kyoto', 'Uzbek Golden' and 'Little Fingers'.  The 'Kyoto Red' produced a lot of carrots that were all top and a thin, woody tap root.  

I caged 8 tomato plants today, so even if they sprout legs, they won't be able to escape the garden.

The pink celery is slow growing, like all the other celery I've grown over the years.  I did put some 'D'Elene' celery in a pot, and it's grown faster and larger.  I was going to try to grow it by increasingly piling up soil so it would bleach like store-bought celery, but I got lazy.

Pink stemmed celery

I got curious again and pulled up another garlic.  Still not ready yet.

Even though I was going to let my crowded onions grow on for a while and use them as green onions, I've had to thin them even for that.

Overcrowded onions

The miner's lettuce and corn salad (maché) didn't grow large enough to be of any culinary use.

Left: maché, Right: miner's lettuce

And that "melon" I was so shocked about overwintering: it's a hollyhock!  That explains it!  What I don't know is how it got there.  My hollyhocks are across the vegetable garden and then beyond the rose bed.

I'm not sure what I'm growing in the picture below.  There were pretty pink angelonias there last year that I let go to seed, so I'm hoping that's what these are.  They could just be some weeds.

Lots and lots of honeybees in the butterfly milkweed!

Until next time...