Growing tomatoes

The tomatoes are out of control. Despite my ongoing efforts to keep them pinched and pruned and growing in the right direction, they are running wild. I have lopped off 1/3 of the plants, but they just keep growing. The rain. The rain. The rain.

They are also lightly infested with a diverse ecosystem of insects. So far, they don't seem to be suffering too much from it. I've been feeding them about every 2 weeks with Neptune's garden. Each of the plants have loads of tomatoes growing.

These were planted May 10th from seedlings.

Growing spring vegetables

Despite the cool, wet weather, the spring vegetables were done by early July. The snap peas grew so tall they toppled over. The lettuce, mesclun and mache went to seed.

We've pulled the first round of carrots planted April 5th and ready from 11-13 weeks. There is a second crop of carrots still growing.

I've pulled the snap peas and lettuces. I've replaced the mache with parsnips planted July 3rd, and the snap peas with swiss chard. I'm leaving the lettuce section free to replant with lettuce in late August.

How to grow snap peas

The sugar snap peas from Renee's Garden grew to almost 7' tall (about 16 plants) in our 40"x14" plot. They were planted April 5th. From 11 to 14 weeks they produced delicious sweet peas - about 2.5 lbs worth.

We've had a wet season, but they required very little special care, other than the teepee wound with string to support them. I pulled them down on July 5th because they had grown so tall they toppled over in the wind, but I think they would have easily kept growing and producing peas! See snap peas grow.

I chopped the plants and composted them, but chopped up the roots and left them in the soil. The roots of peas fix nitrogen and pull it into the soil.

I have seeded the area with more swiss chard.

Growing hops

This hops vine found its own way into our vegetable garden this year. It is growing like crazy with all the rain we've had in Massachusetts in the month of June.

It popped up in the middle of the strawberry patch, and since the strawberries are done for the season, we gave it a trellis to climb.

Squash at 4 weeks

Squash plants at 4 weeks

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

Carrots ready to eat

The nantes carrots planted 12 weeks ago are ready to eat. About 8" long and delicious. We had some the other night in a carrot ginger puree.

We have about 30 carrots growing in a 14"x20" space. They have been low maintenance and pretty easy to grow.