Garden Progress Report

10 June

This was the state of our garden post gardening session upon our return from Indiana and before the start of the previously blogged about concert. The tilled up areas on the right were the mostly failed peas due to the rabbits and a failed crop of watermelon radishes. It was the first time to grow watermelon radishes so I'm not sure why they never really grew. Also tilled up and partly covered in straw was a row of white onions. I bought red and white onion sets this spring and planted them and they looked fine for a long time but suddenly, every single white onion died. I've never had an onion of any type die before so I'm not sure if I accidentally bought a different type of short lived onion instead of the ones I expected which are supposed to produce large heads of 3 or 4 inches in diameter or perhaps some disease. The red onions are growing quite well still. In those tilled up spaces, I planted some late sweetcorn thanks to a suggestion for Donna's blog again. If all goes well, we may have some sweetcorn to eat around the end of August.

We also filled in a couple of the blank rows with some eggplant and tried another round of okra. The first okra seeds we planted never came up, a victim of a cold stretch of weather we had this spring. I'm not sure there is enough time to grow okra but we'll see. The okra seeds were all saved from last year so there is still a chance that germination rates could also be an issue. We did a bit more mulching of the strawberries and the newly planted egg plant starts. The only thing we didn't get done was to weed the three rows of carrots. Perhaps I might get that finished this week and we can be caught up on gardening until the sweetcorn gets tall enough to finish mulching the garden.

Our potato crop (the lush vegetation just left of center) bloomed well and is looking great. It won't be long before we can start digging up some new potatoes. To the left of them is our been crop, fresh style and some more dry shelling beans. None of them are really terrific stands this time around, mostly because I think we got in a hurry and planted them a touch too early. Somewhere in there, my wife couldn't wait until the peas were picked and planted the squash. I kept telling her it will drown out everything on that side of the garden but she is more stubborn than I and did it anyway. On the far left are the tomato plants and they are doing well, growing and blooming. We won't beat any records for the earliest tomatoes this year but I hope we get a decent crop. Friends of ours don't get wine but rather boxes of home canned garden fruits and vegetables. My canned tomato soup recipe is always a big hit and I would like to put up some more later this summer if possible. 

Off to the right, about half the crowns of asparagus came up and are looking fine, albeit tiny compared to the 25 year old mature patch I'm used too. Thus far, both the deer and the rabbits have left them alone so perhaps there is hope. Next year, I'll drive to a store near the farm that sells asparagus crowns that were four times the size of the tiny dried up ones I got from the seed catalog place way too late to plant, and replant what doesn't come up next spring. Up against the garden shed, my rhubarb plants are looking fine and showing signs of having enough to harvest next year.

All the fruit trees are looking bountiful this year. Besides the already blogged about sour cherries, all the apple trees are loaded with fruits setting on it. We had a couple nights where freezing was a possibility this spring when they were in blooms but they apparently made it through unscathed. If I can beat out the squirrels, perhaps I can get my first apple crop to speak of this year from our urban trees.