Growth

 

We've had a slow start to our garden due to the colder spring than normal but it has really made progress these past couple weeks with some heat and rain applied. Above in the foreground is our garlic which for lack of a better plan, I stuck in the unused half of my wife's raised strawberry beds. Her strawberries were decimated by rabbits last year and even this spring before I finally figured things out. Though behind the garlic, they are looking a lot better now. The garlic itself doesn't look the best. I'm assuming it is due to a lack of nutrients which is to be expected since we started this garden pretty much devoid of anything nutritional to plant health. The soil is a lot better than last and will continue to improve so there is hope for the future.

The sweetcorn is really growing fast and it won't be long before it obscured the rest of the garden from the above angle.

Below is from the other corner where the heavily rabbit eaten peas are staging a comeback. Since I took this photo, they have covered themselves in blossoms so we may get some peas yet though I suspect the crop will be heavily reduced in the higher temperatures. The lettuce rows have overwhelmed us. In fact, since I took this photo, I cut off the uneaten tops of them and used that to mulch around them and hopefully keep them from bolting for another week or two. I do like my nightly fresh garden salad diet.

Beyond that are some cut flowers and radishes my wife planted. The radishes, did okay but they were more of a specialty kind, watermelon, and not as hardy to our area as the typical red ball shaped ones I have normally planted. The carrots are looking to be the best I've grown in a while and we've thinned them for the third time already to give more spaces for growth. The onions, potatoes and tomatoes are all growing fast and look very healthy. 

Not really visible is the rhubarb planted in front of our greenhouse under the windows beside the double doors. I planted them last spring and only half of them came up this year and sprouted just a few leaves each. I bought three more plants to fill in the gap. If they don't produce better next year, I'll have to try planting them someplace else. My asparagus was also really thin this year. Since it was planted only last year, I didn't pick any but I was hoping it would have produced more spears than it did. Hopefully it picks up next year, the first year I'm allowed to start picking. If not, I may have to expand our garden just a touch and create a dedicated part of it just for asparagus, out of bounds for the rabbit and deer to munch though google assures me they would prefer not too.