Planting the summer crops

Most of the summer crops are in the beds now, with the exception of winter squash.  The solanacae bed has been planted with tomatoes, peppers, eggplant and basil.  First I transplanted one tomato seedling into each of the five cages.   These cages are tall (5') and thin (18").  They get indeterminate tomatoes. Then I set the pots of peppers and eggplant where they go.  A single eggplant was planted at each end, and inside the pepper seedlings were set in ranks of 2 in a stagger pattern.   The eggplant needs a little more space while peppers are OK with some crowding. 

Then it was just a matter of scooping out the soil and setting them in.  There's room for another pepper seedling and I'll pick up another Jalapeno plant today:

The 'greenhouse' bed that grew the overwintered spinach, now gone, got 4 Millionaire okra plants on the north side of the bed.  Summer squash was seeded in the center of the bed, and by the time it gets big the garlic should be out.  While the overwintered spinach has all been harvested, there's still a row of spring-planted spinach, Reflect, that for whatever reason, just isn't growing much, but at least it hasn't bolted.   There's also some overwintered lettuce left and a row of bunching onion.  I pulled up a handful of the onion to make room for the okra, washed it, cut off most of the tops and set them in a container of water in the refrigerator.  They make a refreshing snack.

This bed got 4 Vertina pickling cucumbers on the north side.  There is space for one more cucumber, a Diva slicer, but it's not ready yet.  The first 2 seeds failed to germinate, so I sowed 3 more and one of them came up.  Old seeds.

This bed also gets beets and carrots, which are hard to see in the picture.  In the space of 2 days something mowed down the beets.  This happened last summer and I suspect the wild rabbits.  My domestic rabbits go crazy over beet greens, and their wild cousins must have been willing to take a chance on getting so close to the house just to get these. 

After the extended rains followed by extended sunshine, about 5 cloudless days, the Victoria rhubarb that was planted this spring put on a sudden growth spurt.  Looks like there will be plenty of rhubarb next season.

Potatoes in burlap bags are growing.  I put the bags in a plastic tub to help hold water, and drilled weep holes a bit less than an inch above the bottom so they don't hold too much water, in case we get another deluge.

The big disappointment for the year is definitely the lettuce in the Earthbox.  This is the second planting after the first seedlings were taken out, and a strip of fertilizer was added down the middle.  Usually I get about 5 pounds of lettuce from one SWC, but so far this year, nothing.  It's got to be the potting mix.

For the most part, the garden is off to a good start.  Now I need to think about protecting the plants from pests and disease.