Garden Plot in Mid-August
Category: General
Late July Update
I harvested some more tomatoes and some forgotten beets and baby carrots. I need to replant the spot in the garden where I pulled the garlic a couple of weeks ago. I will direct-sow lettuces, carrots and beets and some basil. I also need to stake the beans and do a thorough weeding. There is so much grass in my plot. I think it came from the field hay that I used to mulch last year or the year before.
The cucumbers do not look great. The plants are not thriving, and the fruit is small and round. I know they suffered from the heat. Cucumbers do not like temperatures above 90, and we just had a 8 day-heat wave with temperatures in the mid- to upper 90s. The zucchini is dying. Not sure what is happening. It is just shriveling up, including the one single fruit, which stopped growing and is deformed and starting to yellow. The eggplant plants are tiny. The three winter squash plants have very few flowers. I am hoping things will improve.
Tomatoes are looking great. Tons of fruit, but the plants themselves are not very tall this year. I need to amend the soil this fall. Beans, corn and flowers are looking great.
Peas and Scapes
I went to the garden this morning to water, and I harvested peas and garlic scapes. The garden is looking good, everything is growing nicely except the kale, which has become victim to some nibbler. If I am lucky, I will have one surviving plant. Other than that, everything looks great. The corn is coming up (I think, unless I mistook some weeds for it) and the dahlias (that I had stored in the basement since the fall under complete neglect) are also growing. I am excited.
I will have the peas for lunch (in a salad most likely) and will make pesto with the garlic scapes.
Garden Plot 2022
Planting the Last Seedlings
I finished planting my garden plot for now. Today, I transplanted the remaining seedlings: 5 cucumbers (3 x National Pickling, 1 x Straight Eight, 1 x Tokiwa), winter squash (one each butternut, honey nut, delicata), one more tomato just because (Dr. Wyche Yellow), leeks, cilantro, 1 zucchini, lettuces (May Queen, Salanova Mix and Black Seeded Simpson), eggplant (3 each Nadia and Thai), kale and Swiss Chard. All I have to do now is put in flowers (all direct-sow except the dahlias) and direct-sow corn, beets, carrots and greens and plant the rhubarb.
Planting Tomatoes
I finally got to spend a few hours in the garden to weed and plant. COVID had basically knocked me out the entire month of April, and life, work and the weather got in the way until today. While weeding, I discovered that the cilantro and the beets I sowed earlier this spring germinated. They are tiny because of all the weeds but are looking strong. Yay! So I excavated them plus the sole kale plant and the couple of carrots that survived. I have had all my seedlings ready for weeks, but now finally got to plant the first batch: tomatoes (12 plants, 10 varieties total, I doubled Ananas Noire and Stupice), four basil plants and four marigolds. All grown from seed except the marigolds, which came from Neighborhood Farm. The peas and the garlic are looking good. Next, I will plant all the cucumbers and squash, eggplant, lettuce, leeks etc. waiting so patiently on my back porch.
Seedlings
My seedlings are ready to go into the ground, but we still have no water in the garden. It is promised for this week, so fingers crossed!
Spring
I spent a couple of hours in the garden this afternoon weeding, trellising the peas and chatting to passers-by. I also harvested my first three stalks of asparagus and cut some lily of the valley.
Spring Planting and First Harvest
I have not been in the garden for a while because I had COVID for the past three and a half weeks and was not feeling too great. I had managed to sow peas and spring greens in early April and they are sprouting. Today, I did more direct sowing. I sowed red beets (Detroit Dark Red), carrots (Scarlet Nantes and Danvers Half Long), Rainbow Chard and cilantro. I also transplanted a parsley plant I had purchased a few days ago and four kale seedlings I had started indoors a few weeks ago. We still do not have water in the garden. Fingers crossed for some showers in the next few days, so I do not have to schlepp water from home.
I also harvested my first crops today, spring onions. They were so fragrant! And the asparagus is getting ready.
First Direct Sowing
The plot does not like much yet, but things are happening. Today I sowed peas, spring greens (in between the two rows of peas) and spinach and rapini (a first for me). And so it begins …