A little rain goes a long way

We're not getting as much rain as we need, but we're getting enough that I can stop watering for a bit.  Things are really taking off.  

The 'Calima' bush beans are up.

Wasabi radishes are filling out.  I hope they decide to make an actual radish this year.  Otherwise, they won't be planted again.  Well, they may not even then, depending on whether I like them.

This is the first year I've planted roma style tomatoes.  'Speckled Roman' looked beautiful last summer in my sister's Wisconsin garden, so I thought I'd give them a shot.  The plants all look like they were hit by herbicide.  They weren't.  Maybe they just don't like it here.

'Tender Sweet' carrots are up and very weedy.  They get lawnmower clipping trash sprayed on them by a careless lawn mower, and I have a heck of a time pulling out little grass seedlings.  After my first year of carrots that did beautifully, I haven't had much luck.  Thinning carrots is a difficult job, so this year I tried very hard to sow the seed sparsely.  It looks like I managed it ok.  Maybe too sparsely. Hopefully the carrots will grow nicely and be both tender and sweet.  I recently planted another patch of 'SugarSnax' carrots, but they have yet to germinate.

Newly emerged potato plants were hit by a freeze, but they've come out of it just fine.  I planted 'Yukon Gold' and 'All Blue' this year.  This is 'All Blue':

I'm looking forward to finding out how the blue ones compare in texture and taste.

I have several varieties of lettuce, most of which got off to a poor start due to the unexpected cold weather early on.  The 'Green Ice' and 'New Red Fire' varieties were sown at the same time, and they've certainly responded differently.

'New Red Fire'

'Early purple Vienna' kohlrabi plants are getting established, but they're not nearly as big as the ones I still have in pots to give away.

My favorite cantaloupe - 'Savor' - seeds germinated and grew poorly.  I transplanted three anyway, but I'm not expecting much.  It was last year's seed, so maybe it doesn't store well, even in the freezer.  Or maybe I should have direct seeded like I usually do. I'll order more for next year.

In the meantime, I ordered some small Persian melons to try.  The catalog promised very sweet fruit, so I'm hoping they'll be at least nearly as good as 'Savor'.  I set them out a little earlier than I might otherwise do, but I need to get things established well before I leave later this month for two weeks out of state.  

Small Persian melon

Tomatoes are caged, peppers are planted, oregano is starting to get out of control, and chives are blooming.

I have never met so many mole tunnels in my life.  The whole garden seems undermined.  I've been trying to drill holes with the water hose and flood them, and put mole bait in the tunnels they reuse.  I planted a row of basil along my tomatoes, about 20 plants, and I hit a tunnel setting in all but 2! 

My poor zinnia patch looks like it was bombed from my attempts to rid it of moles.

I planted some 'Giant Rattle' annual poppies for the first time this year, and the foliage is looking like the giant part isn't a lie.

I still don't know what variety this iris is, but I love it.  The blooms are huge, and so lovely.  

And now I have another iris whose name I don't know.  I know the plants I ordered for this bed did not include a rich purple one, so I can only assume the seller got one mixed in of another name, but I'm not complaining.

I would like to know its name, though.  I suppose I can just give it one.  Or find a dark purple iris that looks like it and call it that.  It looks like one from the company I ordered from called 'Titan's Glory', so that's probably what I'll call it.

'Victoria Falls' (pale purple), 'English Charm' (two tone orange), 'Penny Lane' (brilliant orange), pink Gladiolus bizantinus, and oriental lilies yet to bloom

This year there's only one stem of 'Penny Lane'.  I hope that doesn't mean it's giving up.

'English Charm'

'Jade Eyes' white allium, 'Tangerine Gem' Spanish poppy, 

and orange-scarlet oriental poppies

honeybees buzzing an oriental poppy

'Tangerine Gem' Spanish poppies

purple blooming 'Orange Balsam' creeping thyme 

covering the ground in the rose garden

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!

Forty days and forty nights

Lordy, we could use some sunshine!  I've been happy to have an actual spring this year - something I haven't seen since I was a child - but enough rain is enough rain.  (Yes, I'll be complaining in a few weeks about how hot and dry it is.)

The plants don't like it any more than I do.  They can't get green without sun. And if they can't get green, they won't grow.

Poor little cucumbers.

And the basil!  Oh my.

Peppers are no better off.

All the warm season crops look very sad indeed.  I sprayed them with a fish emulsion solution to give them a nitrogen boost, and side-dressed them with epsom salts for better nitrogen uptake.  They look a little better.

Basil

Pepper

Celery

However, the lettuce and arugula, both cool season crops, don't mind at all.

I haven't even set the tomatoes out yet.  They look pathetic.  I didn't have a greenhouse set up this year.  Everything had to go outdoors and under a row cover tunnel.  There just wasn't enough heat or sun for the tomatoes.  They look like they have herbicide damage, but it's just the cold.

The first year of my garden, I put the tomatoes out too soon, and the cold did this same damage.  I thought it was herbicide damage from the nearby field so threw them away and started over.  This year, since they weren't anywhere near the field, I realized this is what happens when it's too cool for them.  I'm expecting them to shape up when we finally get summer.  I hope I'm not disappointed, because I'm not starting any new ones.

Even the shirley poppies are unhappy.

But let's quit looking at all the sad stuff and turn to the flowers that ARE happy.

Foreground: Oriental poppies (red), 'Jade Eyes' allium, Spanish poppies (orange)

Background: 'Caradonna' salvia (dark purple) and orange thyme (light purple ground cover)

Mountain lily (Chionodoxa)

Japanese iris

Copper iris (Iris fulva)

The whole shebang (click the picture to enlarge)

Go on out there and do a sun dance, if you don't mind.

'Til next time.