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Monday, May 29, 2017

Monday, Memorial Day, May 29

It's been my custom to take a quick photo tour of the vegetable beds on Memorial Day.  The end of May is a great time to do this, with the main crops off to a start and great expectations for a good growing season.  This is also Harvest Monday, where you can see what kind of goodies gardeners everywhere are growing at Our Happy Acres, so here's my contribution.

Actually not very much.  I picked 2 kohlrabi, totaling 27 ounces.  What's left of the spinach was showing signs of bolting, so out it came.  I also got a bit more of the overwintered lettuce, which, thanks to mild weather, has not bolted.  From the Earthbox, which normally gives me about 5 pounds of lettuce, nothing.  Next year, a better potting mix will be used.  Also, one last spear of asparagus was harvested.  It's time to let it grow.

I might as well show the bed where this came from, the 'overwinter bed,' which is covered by a plastic greenhouse through the winter.  There's still some lettuce left.  Very small seedlings that have been waiting in the shadow of the bigger plants begin to grow once they get adequate sunlight.  There's a summer squash in the center of the bed where the overwintered spinach used to grow.  On the north side of the bed are 4 Millionaire okra plants.  There's garlic at one end and bunching onion at the other end.

The bed behind this one has onion, carrot, and cucumber.  It did have 2 rows of beets but no more.  I suspect wild rabbits.  Usually they don't have the nerve to get this close to the house but the thought of beet greens must overcome all fears.  The Vertina pickling cucumbers are growing with vigor.  So far I've been removing any cucumbers that form so the plants will put their energy into establishing foliage.  There's also a Diva slicing cucumber at one end that is quite a bit behind the others.

The Solanacae crops are coming right along.  The north side of the bed has 5 skinny (19 inch diameter) and tall (5 feet) tomato cages, each with one plant.  There's 2 Mountain Magic, and 1 each of Black Plum, Better Boy and Pink Girl, all indeterminate tomatoes.  There's a Bride eggplant at one end and a Lavendar Touch eggplant at the other.  In between are peppers:  2 each of Bastan and Mosquitero ancho, Magyar paprika, and Jalapeno.  There's one each of Bulgarian Carrot, Fish, Mama Mia Giallo, Carmen, and Jimmy Nardello.

This morning I noticed that the Jimmy Nardello had already formed up a pepper.  I'm still removing any peppers that form so the plants can establish themselves, but in this case I'll make an exception.  Same with the Jalapeno peppers, they can start producing peppers since it's a vigorous plant and the peppers are small.

The squash bed has 3 cages of determinate sauce tomatoes.  These cages are wider (2 feet) and not as tall as the cages for the indeterminate plants, with 2 plants in each cage.  There are 2 cages of Plum Regal, a supposedly blight resistant hybrid paste tomato, and one cage of Roma VF.  There's another eggplant between two of the cages.  There's space between all cages to allow for better air circulation, and to help prevent blight from spreading cage to cage.


OK this just amazes me.  I bought a Victoria rhubarb plant in a quart pot this spring and planted it.  After the recent rains followed by sunshine the plant sort of exploded.  Maybe it was the rabbit poop compost that did it.

Another bed has the last set of cole crops, a patch of parsnip, and two rows of Provider bush beans, which will give me beans until the pole beans get started.

Speaking of pole beans, I noticed this morning that they had just started climbing the twine, and the winter squash has germinated.  That's a cover crop of field peas growing near the beans. 

The Earliglow strawberries are still producing enough berries for a snack every day.  Something ate the leaves on the right side of the planter.  I suspect rabbits but don't know how they reached that high.  It's hard to believe that deer would get this close to the house.  They have to cross the levee or go through the field on the other side, and they've never been willing to do that.  When you garden, the world is full of animal bandits.

6 comments:

Phuong said...

Your tomato and pepper plants have grown so much in a week, your beds are filling out nicely. It's great seeing an overview of your whole garden.

Michelle said...

The deer around here would be happy to cross a levee and a field to get to my garden. Only a high fence deters them. And the dang rabbits aren't stopped by anything, I have to put hardware cloth cages around their favorite veggies. Ah yes, our gardens are critter magnets.

Your garden looks fabulous!

Dave @ HappyAcres said...

You are a bit ahead of me with planting. I just now got my pole beans planted, and my peppers are still hardening off. That rhubarb plant is impressive! I have not had much luck with it here.

Lisa said...

Oh my goodness! I'm just a bit envious of all your space. I have a tiny urban garden, and have to be so stingy with space. My Victoria rhubarb seems like such a monster, but I'll bet it's smaller than yours.

Margaret said...

Wow that is one huge plant - I have a feeling there will be no shortage of rhubarb at your house in the years to come!

I tried Diva last year, but the first seedling died and the 2nd never amounted to anything. I think this had more to do with the shade cast by the other cucumber vines than the variety itself. This year, I'm having issues with all my cucumbers as they never fully recovered from being left outside during some heavy winds. At least I still have time to reseed, but this means a huge delay in the harvest.

Unknown said...

I love the pics of your garden and the beds! I'm stuck to container gardening but I love to see pics to get ideas for when we do finally get our forever home and I can break ground!

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