4 weeks of rain!

It did nothing but rain in the month of May. But we went from having the heat on to having the AC on. Summer arrived in a flash and there was finally, some nice weather for memorial day weekend.
The warm temps have brought out all sorts of flowers, and the veggies are cranking along.
Signs of life from the potato patch.
More beans have emerged, but still a sad showing all around. I think I will plant some more seeds this weekend.
Brussels sprouts and broccoli have come up.
Finally some signs of life from the parsnips. Wee sprouts have emerged over the warm weekend.
we can probably start eating the spinach already. There's still not as much as I would like. I could get perhaps 4 servings of spinach from our still young 3 SF patch.
The strawberries are coming along nicely and the raspberries are starting to flower.

What a difference a month makes

Just one month later and the April 1st snow is long forgotten. There are snap peas coming up, and lettuce, cilantro, spinach and chard.

Finally we have had a few days where it's not raining, snowing and/or generally cold. Yesterday I got kentucky pole beans, french filet beans, brussels sprouts, broccoli, and basil planted.

These are the good days when the sweetest reward is just the plant emerging from the ground...long before the fungus and blight and critters and hot/dry summer sucks the life out of everything and gardening becomes a daily fight for survival.

Spring Vegetables

Despite the complete lack of blog posts, things are growing in the garden. I got the first group of seeds - carrots, spinach, black seed simpson lettuce and leeks - in the ground the first weekend in April. The first lot has been a disappointment with good growth out of the carrots and spinach, but the seeds have come up very sparsely, despite the chicken wire dome I built to protect the seeds from cats, birds and 2 year old D. The lettuce has been mostly eaten by the rabbits, and the leeks have been mostly trampled by D.
I followed up with a second sowing of spinach, carrots and lettuce 2 weeks later, around April 17th. A few carrots and spinach emerged. I haven't seen anything from the lettuce.
In mid-April I also planted cilanto, parsley and snap peas. A few dozen cilantro came up and no parsley. The snap peas, carefully protected from turkeys by a chicken wire dome, have come up robustly and are about 14" tall at 4 weeks. I also started red onions from starts. I'm determined to have all the makings of salsa in the garden this year.
On May 7th, I added greens beans and cucumbers (persian and pickling). The cucumbers are up in good numbers and the beans are just starting to poke through.
On May 15th, I transplanted tomatoes, 8 varieties (big boy, celebrity, golden girl, 2 sun golds, 2 plum and a purple krim). I also transplanted some very tiny basil that looks like it might not survive and peppers (4 japapeno, a cubanelle and 4 yellow bells). All from Russells. I also planted out my broccoli seedlings which are very spindley (no artificial light source) and small. After 2 nights in the garden, they are holding up pretty well. I dropped in some zucchini seeds along the outer, eastern bed that doesn't get as much sunlight. I resowed:

• lettuce - there are currently just 2 heads from the 50+ seeds I've planted
• spinach
• carrots
• leeks

And added some radishes, between the thinly growing cilantro and the red onions and some additional basil and parsley seeds. The parsley resowed naturally from last year, so I have a decent amount already growing, but it is already going to seed. I expect the rabbits will get the parsley seedlings as they start to emerge.

But, most significantly, my honey built me a rabbit fence to keep the critters out of the central garden. This will protect the most vulnerable and sought after plants - carrots, spinach and lettuce. I'm hopeful that the now-protect lettuce will actually make a go of it. Though, May is all about being hopeful about the garden.

Growing haricot verts

The beans (haricot verts and kentucky blue) are doing well growing up the teepee. We pulled plenty off before we left, and another 2 lbs when we returned.

The beans have been a great crop planted in their 3'x3' area, plus the ones that I interplanted with the corn are fruiting. They're providing several dinners worth of vegetables each week.

Untended vegetable garden

Two weeks of vacation left the vegetable garden pretty ravaged. The bunnies have had a field day munching the basil and squash flowers. The tomatoes grew 2 feet and collapsed under their own weight, taking the stakes down with them and smothering the peppers and eggplant. G built a new contraption to hold them up. (Apparently it rained a lot while we were away, plus we had the sprinkler setup on the timer to go off everyday for 30 minutes.) The blight is taking over the tomatoes. I'm hoping that having them upright and better air circulation will help with the blight, but I've lost the yellow tomato altogether.

Still, we pulled about 2 lbs of beans, buckets of grape tomatoes and a dozen cucumbers out of the garden when we returned. I pickled up the green beans with rosemary and lemon

Growing haricot verts

The beans are in!

I planted haricot verts and kentucky blue beans 11 weeks ago. The haricot verts came in first. We had the first of them for dinner tonight.

They were slow to get started, but so far they've been pest free and very little trouble

Growing green beans

The green beans (a combination of Kentucky Blue and haricot verts) are finally looking happy.

-some of these beans were started indoors in newspaper pots in late April
-some were started in plastic bags in early May
-some were direct sown in the garden in mid-April
-some were direct sown in the garden in early June

There is very little difference. OK, the ones started 10 days ago are definitely smaller, but the rest of them are about the same size. The ones started indoors in late April struggled for a long time after I planted them out in mid-May.

It seems the warming summer weather has perked them up.

Three sisters garden (corn, beans, squash)

When the corn was up 4 inches or so (around June 8th), I thinned the corn to about 12" and planted 3-4 pole beans seeds at the base of each stalk (a mix of Kentucky blue and haricot verts). 10 days later, the corn has survived a rabbit attack and the beans are starting to sprout.

I also planted pumpkin at either end of the corn bed. This is the "three sisters garden", a supposedly beneficial planting arrangement where the beans climb the corn stalks and the squash, in this case pumpkins, fill in around the base to form a natural mulch. Greg normally does not go for such promiscuous co-minging of plants, so I've never tried this approach before.

Spring planting

Seedlings from Russells in 4 inch pots: $3.99
Planted 6 tomato seedlings. From east to west: Yellow Pear, Better Boy, Purple Krim, Celebrity, Golden Girl, Smarty (grape).
Planted 3 egglants: 2 Black Beauties and an Ichiban
Planted 3 peppers: jalapeno, cubanelle, red bell
Planted 3 basil from home depot.
Planted red onions from Gus.
Also added Tarragon, Thyme, Parsley and Rosemary to the herb bed. I'll see if I can cage or bottle the rosemary to keep it alive through the winter...
Altogether spent another $57 on seedlings.
I also planted sweet corn in the southeast corner and started kentucky blue beans and french beans on a bean teepee. I've planted them in mounds and covered each mound with a milk jug. We'll see if that keeps the critters out. It was a little too windy today to transplant the bean seedlings from the sun porch, but they are 6 or 8 inches tall and ready to in the garden.