This Year's Garden...1st Update

I know I haven't blogged much(if any!)about our garden this year.
I don't know....I guess I am just not much 'into' the garden this year.

Here's a shot of the side bed from April 30th when we were just getting to cleaning out the beds and prepping the soil....

Usually we have nothing to harvest until mid July at the earliest because of our climate/zone.
Well, the 2 weeks of unseasonably HOT weather in early June sped up the rate of germination and growth a LOT!
We've been picking radishes for weeks!

I've got them coming out of my ears at this point.lol

And here is a shot of the same side bed taken two weeks ago....

A few tomato plants, some squashy/cuke type plants(I don't even remember what kinds....see what I mean about I'm not into it this year!lol) and a few bean plants.

We are having a devil of a time getting the bean plants to grow.  We've planted different kinds(bush and vine type)in all the different bed locations with little success.  Hubs sewed some into the wooden barrels also and those were doing great!
Until a critter found them and had a munchfest. bleh

 Hubs thinks one of the resident bunnies is decimating the bean plants since we know that the bunnies have jumped INTO the wooden barrels in the past.  But if the bunnies are doing this, explain why just the tops of the bean plants are being eaten, like someone taking a weedwacker to the plants and leaving the lower/bottom foliage and plant intact?  I think it's a taller animal, like a deer, walking through the yard and eating the tops of the bean plants.
Either way, our bean plants are not going to produce any beans this year.  *sigh*

Doesn't this shot look very lush and promising?
It is.
But it's all WEEDS not veggies!lol

And we got our first blossom on the eggplant plants 2 weeks ago.  See the lavender flower on the left in the photo?  I don't know if it will produce a fruit however since I haven't see any bees around yet to pollinate stuff.  The tomato plants in the backyard bed have golf ball sized tomatoes as of this week so I know the bees are around.
I hope I don't have to resort to playing bee and go from bloom to bloom with a paintbrush on the eggplant and squash blossoms. ;-)

Here's something I do that you might find unusual.
Lettuces are an early Spring crop.  You are suppose to plant it early and it dies back by mid summer usually.
Since we can't plant an early crop of lettuces/greens while the weather is still coolish here due to our climate, I sew the lettuce seeds among the cuke and squash plant seeds at the same time I sew the cuke/squash seeds.
This way, by the time the weather gets too warm for the lettuces(the hot weather that makes your lettuce wilt, dry up and die), the squash leaves have grown large enough to shield the lettuce from full sun.  The lettuce continues to grow well into August.

Here's my squash type plants....

 But move the leaves back and look closer....

 See my salad greens!

That's my diversity garden bed. 8-)

How is your garden doing?

Sluggy

Winding Down the Gardening.....Still Picking Though!

Monday I finally picked the squash in the front garden bed.
Let me rephrase that....I picked the squash on the lawn in front of the front garden bed.
The squash that had been swallowed up by the TALL GRASS under the squash vines that stretched out onto the lawn in front of the front garden bed.
The tall grass that was so dense you couldn't see the squash.
The tall grass that grew so dense since we couldn't move the squash nor mow under it for the last 6 weeks or so.
I'm so glad I don't live next door to ANNIE JONES or I'd have gotten a notice from the city for my patches of grass forest dotting my front lawn. j/k  ;-)

Anyway, here's what I hacked off the vines before I ripped them up and let #2 son have at it with the front lawn....

Note the lone pepper too.
There is one more Butternut Squash to pick out in the barrel planter....well, the plant is in the barrel, the squash is in the back garden bed next to it.

Things are winding down in the garden quickly now.  Not much left to harvest.
Though I still have collards, more peppers and tomatoes to pick.  The jalapeno peppers keep on coming....

And there is this.....

A baby eggplant.....finally!
We put these plants in the beginning of June and they sat and did nothing.....and the baby bunny rabbit ravaged their leaves and we thought the sticks he left would die in July......and they didn't and grew new foliage later in July and continued to do no growing in Aug. and most of Sept.....and then they grew flowers and bloomed in late Sept. and one bloom grew a teeny tiny 1.5 inch eggplant.
So I have a mission now.
To construct a teeny tiny hoop house/transparent plastic covering to try and coax this plant to live long enough past the frost to get this eggplant to grow big enough to eat.
Stay tuned.......

This Harvest----
Peppers--2.9oz.
Squash--10 lbs. 5.4 oz.

TOTAL....10 lbs.  8.3oz.
Garden Harvest Weight Total to date....87 lbs.  11.02 oz.

Sluggy

In the Garden Over the Weekend

 Well, I worked up my nerve and ventured out front and to the side garden bed on the weekend and here is what I found....

3 Killer sized Squash, 2 Italian Roasting Peppers, 2 more Cukes(*Sluggy crying & begging for mercy*), 1 Golden Bell Pepper, 1 Roma Tomato(that had fallen on the ground), 1 Jalapeno Pepper that had turned bright red & 1 teeny green bean(that blends into the tablecloth pattern).

This Harvest--
TOTAL....5lb. 10.8oz.
Garden Harvest Weight Total to date....41lb. 11.82 oz.

Hubs is going to pick the Roma Tomatoes later today so I'll be processing those to can tomorrow.  I'll have a photo of the 1st real tomato harvest soon.....

Sluggy

Last Week's Harvest....No More Cucumbers Please!

After nagging for THREE DAYS I did finally get someone to pick some green beans before they grew to GINORMOUS proportions and we picked the 5th head of cauliflower for Kallaum's Thursday dinner plus I found 2 huge cukes hidden in the back garden bed....

This Harvest--
TOTAL....2lb. 8.8oz.

Garden Harvest Weight Total to date....36 lb. 1.02 oz.

I am actually scared to go check the front and side garden beds now.  Last week there were more beans, yellow squash, golden peppers and a bunch of tomatoes close to turning or otherwise being ready to pick.

I also have a request for the Garden gods....no more cukes please!  We are overrun and a person can only eat so many salads or pickles.  ;-)


Sluggy

Garden June 18th Update.....22 Days

With this unseasonably warm weather for June, the garden is starting to take off!
I snapped these photos on Friday, 12 days after the last set of pictures I took.

You can see the tomato plants here have shot up.....they need cages already.
This is what they looked like 12 days earlier....

The eggplant plants are just hanging in there.....

These tomato plants are not growing as fast as the ones at the other end of the bed.  Less sunlight and the soil is not as nice....

The green beans and squash/zuke plants have started coming in at the front of the house.....

And here is the end of the front bed....

The holes in the center of this shot are where the evile chipmunks have dug up the sunflower seeds every time I replanted them, dang them!!
Something buglike has been eating on the collard plants on the right in the photo.  I need to make up some soapy spray to drive them off.....those leaves are for MY MUNCHING Pleasure, not yours so bug off!lol
I guess I'll replant some of the cuke plants I need to thin out in the back bed and put them in here.

More bean plants and the salad greens spottily coming in....

Here is what the salad greens looked like 12 days earlier for comparison.  You'll notice the green beans weren't 'up' yet....

The aforementioned cuke plants.  #1 son sowed these and I do believe every single seed took!  40 cuke plants in the space of oh....3 feet!lol

These collard plants the bugs haven't dined on...yet!lol

And the cauliflower plants just about ready to start heading....

Here is what the collards and cauliflower looked like 12 days past....

Notice how the weeds have begun to take over too......ugh.  I have a very hard time bending down and weeding this bed as it has a definite slope and my old body has a hard time keeping my balance while bending over to weed.  I may need to look for some kind of weeding tool with a long handle.....I used one at the CSA we use to belong to but it's not a cheap tool.

So how is your garden growing?
Are you getting any good eats out of it yet?

Sluggy