Picking up speed

 

The last of the tulips have bloomed and dropped, while summer-blooming plants in the tulip beds are coming on.

Mountain lily (Ixiolirion tataricum ssp. pallasii;)

Spanish (Hyacinthoides hispanica) and 

English (H. non-scripta) bluebells 

Direct-sown vegetables are starting to take off.

Recently, I transplanted tomatoes and peppers I had started from seed in the winter.  The tomatoes look like hell from being put into the cold frame too early, and I hope they pull out of it.

The wasabi radish and Napa cabbage that were being eaten by what I thought by the look of the damage (dozens of tiny holes in the leaves) might be flea beetles are looking much better.  It may well have been something other than flea beetles, because I'm attributing the improvement to several neem oil sprays, and the literature says that won't protect against flea beetles.  That makes sense to me because oil is usually considered helpful where insects have sucking instead of chewing mouthparts.  Beetles are chewers.  At any rate, the plants look much better, so I'll stick to neem treatments.

Wasabi radish

(Rhaphanus sativus)

Napa cabbage (aka Chinese cabbage)

(Brassica rapa subsp. chinensis 'Hilton')

Somebody is eating the green beans, and I don't think it's flea beetles, because the holes are rather large.  I haven't seen the culprit, so I'm not trying to treat it yet, even though it's bound to slow down plant growth.  

'Calima' green beans (Phaseolus vulgaris)

Beside the vegetable plots, flowers are budding and blooming.

The oriental poppies I feared were killed in last year's flooding are doing great and popping their caps. (Is that why they're called poppies?)  

German (aka bearded) iris are in full swing.  I've been fooled more than once by advertisements showing color-altered pictures of flowers they call blue.  More often than not, if you're surprised to see it, it's probably actually purple, and I swear not to be fooled again.

In this picture, the iris do in fact look blue (depending on your device's screen).  I didn't shop it, but if they look blue to you, I assure you, they're purple.  The glossy Breck's paper catalog in which I found them showed them very blue, disappointing me on color, but the quality is quite good.

orange 'Penny Lane' and purple 'Victoria Falls'

'English Charm'

'Penny Lane'

'Earth Mother'

I don't know the name of this next fellow.  It was on the premises when I came here.

Until next installment, here's a little gray tree frog (Hyla versicolor) to encourage you to go out and look around your neighborhood.  His red oak tree is a little small, but perhaps he's encouraging it to grow. 

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!

Bulb bed photo dump

'Guinevere'

'Mistress Mystic'

Lilacs, 'Guinevere' emperor tulip, 'Purple Dream' lily-flowered tulip

'Cynthia' species tulip

'Peppermint Stick' species tulip

'Slawa' triumph tulip

'Slawa'

'Slawa'

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...