Early summer garden

Perennials and roses are abloom, and the vegetable garden is providing harvests.  This may be peak time for gardeners in mid-Missouri.  Peas are finished, but I'm now harvesting green beans.

'Calima' green beans

Stray volunteer lettuce plants are growing in various places, including the bean row, and I'm just letting them go so I can collect seeds.

The cabbages I (trans)planted June 10 don't seem to be growing very fast.  Maybe it's too hot.  The 'Primo Vantage' green variety is doing better than the 'Omero' red ones.

'Omero' cabbage

Okra seed germination was poor this year even though it wasn't old seed.  I started with 2 rows, and had to move some to end up with just one row.  

'Carmine Splendor' okra

There are a couple of fruits on the long sweet pepper plants.  I grew them from seeds I collected from a pepper I got at the grocery store, so I don't know what variety they are.  I just hope they're as good as the store peppers.  I've been spraying them with an epsom salt solution to try to enhance growth.   Probably need to water them more.

I tried the method of growing potatoes in straw, but I've not been pleased.  I did get three medium-sized potatoes off one plant today, but the rest aren't producing.  Maybe it's been too dry?  Maybe 'Yukon Gold' potatoes don't do well by that method?  Maybe I don't know what I'm doing?

The garlic was finally ready to be harvested.  I'm going to braid and hang them.

The French Charentais melons ('Savor') are starting to climb their cages and flower.

One 'German Johnson' plant has a small green fruit on it.

Cucumbers have finally gotten going.  The seeds were two or three years old, and even being held in the freezeer, they're losing viability.  I'll have to buy new seed for the next planting.  Before I started freezing leftover seeds, I found that even in the second year, seed viability was greatly reduced.

'Marketmore' cucumber

I pulled up a couple wasabi radishes and found that while the plants are grown and setting seed, the taproots were no bigger than my little finger.  

They were planted last fall.

Wasabi seed heads

I finally decided to read up on how you're supposed to harvest these things and found out they aren't ready for harvesting until the second year.  I guess I'll just leave them in the ground and see what happens.

The onions are at the stage for harvesting as green onions, and since I planted them waaaay to densely, it's working out that I get the perfect size green onions by thinning the crop.

Of course there's no way I was going to get a year without raccoon damage.  The kids are out before dawn and wreaking havoc wherever they can.

I thought I'd discourage this darling little guy by turning the hose on him before letting him go.  At first he tried to get away from the stream, and then he just started playing with it.  What can you do?

'Hens and chicks' poppy

Vegetables in May

'Premium' peas are setting fruit.

Tomatoes are in and looking sad.  I still expect them to take hold and look good in a couple of weeks.

'German Johnson'

'Missouri Pink Love Apple'

'Supersweet 100' cherry tomato

I'm so tempted to pull up a garlic plant and see what it looks like.  But I'll resist.

garlic and wasabi radish

 I did pull up a wasabi radish, as they've bolted, so I figured they'd be ready to harvest.  This is what I got:

Not knowing what it was supposed to look like, I checked the internet and found this picture:

source

How pretty.  Maybe they'd do better as a fall crop.

orange 'Penny Lane' and purple 'Victoria Falls' iris

A slow start

 Between long covid and a cool, wet spring, the vegetable garden is growing late.

The seeds I was able to direct-sow in early spring are doing okay, but could certainly use more sun.  Those I started for the later crops are faring so-so, depending upon their tolerance for low light and temperature.  The 'German Johnson' tomatoes and the basils really suffered from being moved outdoors to the cold frame too soon.  It looked like we were getting into a nice spring when I put them out, and I didn't get them back indoors soon enough when that didn't pan out.

'German Johnson' 

What they looked like before I potted them up and moved them to the cold frame:

I've got them back under lights in the cellar, so I expect them to green up.  Also, it's supposed to be in the low 80s next week with sunshine, so they'll be able to go back outside then.  When I plant them in the garden, I'll just have to plant them deep, or lay them down and leave just the top leaves above ground.  Tomatoes are good about putting on roots anywhere they are in contact with the soil, and in fact, some people recommend planting them that way just for that purpose.  Their lack of chlorophyll right now is a problem, but I'll add composted cow manure to the soil when I plant them, and I expect they'll be fine.

The basils will also make up for their lack of heat and sun when I put them out, but I'm sorry to have given all these plants a less than optimal start.  Every year, it's something.  Last year, things flooded with too much rain, and if it rains much more today or tonight, that could be a problem again.  Fingers crossed.

The remaining flower starts are doing okay outdoors, even out of the cold frame.

The garden plots were heavily infested with weeds this year, which I normally would have had out by now.  Long covid has robbed me of my ability to work very hard or for very long periods, so getting the weeds out has been a miserable and lengthy process.  

Here's the plot where I plan to put cucumbers:

There are nice chives and tarragon there on the left, but the rest of that is chickweed, gone to seed no less.  While this was the weediest plot, all the others have been overrun.  I've tried to clear them as I go.

Because of my lack of energy and the ease with which I tire, my early greens bed is still fairly weedy, and will stay that way.  I used straw for a light mulch this year instead of the grass clippings I usually use because I didn't have any grass clippings at sowing time.

'Calima' French style green beans

Early rains floated old bark from paths into the lettuce plot.

'Marveille de Quatro Saisons' lettuce

'Merlot' lettuce

Because I had gotten several packs of free kale seeds from my various Baker Creek orders, I planted three varieties this year.

'Nero di Toscana' kale

Scarlet kale

'Russian Red' kale

'Hilton' Napa cabbage

The rabbits got to the miner's lettuce as soon as it emerged, so it's working hard to come around.  When I was doing my graduate work in Davis, California, I had to work in vineyards, and sometimes I'd bring along my then-8-year-old son.  He couldn't be coaxed to eat green salads at the table, but he'd graze on the miner's lettuce in the fields.  I tried to take him as often as possible.

Miner's lettuce

I tried maché for the first time last year, planting it in late summer.  It never did get even as big as it is right now from this year's planting, so I still don't know what I'll be harvesting or how it will taste.

Maché (corn salad)

Carrots on the compost hill were very slow to germinate, but they're coming along now.  For the first time, I took care to sow them sparsely so I don't have so much thinning to do.  Thinning carrots is not an easy job.  By the time they get big enough to thin, they seem to all run together, making it difficult to pluck out separate plants.

The overwintered garlic is competing with weeds.  I haven't gotten to this plot yet.

In the lower right corner of that picture are wasabi radishes I sowed last fall at the same time I planted the garlic cloves.  The leaves look a lot like the Napa cabbage seedlings.  Both were bug-eaten as soon as they unfurled, so I've been spraying them with neem oil, which seems to do the job.  As I recall, mature arugula is also prone to bug dining.  

I suspect the culprits are flea beetles, but that article says neem doesn't work for protection against them.  (That would most likely be because they have chewing instead of sucking mouth parts that would be clogged up with oil.) I'll have to keep a watch and see if I'm actually doing anything besides wasting neem oil.

Anxiously awaiting sunshine, with the daffodils gone and the tulips waning, I leave you until next time with a picture of the species tulip, 'Cynthia'.

PS   I may have wished too hard.  Next week the temps are forecast to reach into the low 90s!

Could it be that winter is over?

 Here's hoping we've seen the last of the freezing nights.

The tulilps and daffodils didn't seem to care.

'Guinevere' and 'Red Matador' Darwin hybrid tulips

The amazing cantaloupe that survived all winter long made a tasty treat for some critter recently - either rabbit or deer.  I guess it stuck out like a sore thumb.  Or is that a green thumb?

It finally felt safe to sow some seeds of 'Calima' green beans and 'Jung Orange' okra.

'Calima' green bean seeds in a furrow

The kale and other early greens I planted on March 2 are starting to actually be visible in the scattered straw I used for mulch.

'Russian red' kale

And the garlic I planted last fall made it through the winter just fine, if a little pale.

The onions I planted earlier this spring are up about an inch, but they are so crowded I decided that thinning them would be harder than replanting.  I'll leave them growing to pull for green onions and plant some more for the bulbs, being careful to space them well.  I used old seed (which I keep in the freezer) and didn't expect to get so much germination.  I'll know better next time.

The peas have made it to a couple inches high and have avoided being eaten.  I've helped by spraying Liquid Fence on them every three or four days.

'Premium' peas

I planted 'Premium', a large-seeded variety, again this year along a fence where moles gobbled the seeds I planted the past two years.  This year, I flooded the tunnel they had been using before planting the seeds, and apparently that did the trick.  

I've also planted 'Lincoln' peas, which were a sweet and prolific variety last year,  along with 'Lilian's Caseload', a variety I haven't tried before.  

The carpetweed, chickweed and henbit have gone crazy this year, and I don't have the energy to get it all out.  I'm going at it a little at a time, and I expect the flowers and vegetables will just have to compete.

Looking forward to some sunny days...