June - Finally on Track for Summer

June is in full swing and the weather has stabilized, and although we have had some cooler weather, things are beginning to grow by leaps and bounds.  My Garden Sweet Peas, which I was beginning to be a little disappointed in, grew quite a bit and I think will rival last years results.  If they were on the normal pea trellis, at this point they would have reached the top.  They began to bloom the middle of last week and I have been keeping them watered to encourage this growth spurt.

the final planting of Penelope peas with the old lettuce seed used as ground cover

The first blossoms are always encouraging

Below is one of my large, self watering, containers of eggplants.  On Thursday afternoon the flea beetles arrived so I began using Neem Oil and so far the damage has been minimal.  The few beetles I find I remove.  I don't know if you can tell from the photo, but one of the plants is more pale than the others.  The center growth is not as dark purple, and the leaves are a lime green with no purple veining.  This puzzled me for a couple of days then I realized what happened.

I seeded the Eggplants in March the same time as my Cauliflower.  I used one pack of old seed which had a mixture of varieties (two of the varieties are Rosa Bianca and Beatrice, both lavender) and a new pack of seeds that was Barbarella (a deep purple but rounded fruit).  None of the old seeds came up, which wasn't a big deal, so I transplanted all of the Barbarella seedlings into pots and used the same seed tray for my tomato seeds.  Several weeks after I transplanted the tomato seeds, I realized that one of the "potato leafed' varieties looked an awful lot like an eggplant.  Well, apparently, one of those old seeds finally germinated and hitched a ride with the tomatoes and has now caught up with the Barbarella and is doing great.  I'm looking forward to seeing which variety it turns out to be.

Brussel's Sprouts
(some Cauliflower on one end, and Broccoli on the other)

I'm pretty impressed with the progress of all of my cole crops.  They are large, deep green, and growing fast.  The Brussels Sprouts are HUGE.  I ended up losing about a dozen Cauliflower transplants which I pulled out and replaced with eight Broccoli plants from the local nursery.  They are smaller but catching up. I'm also very happy with having kept the little green worms out so far.

Cauliflower

I thought for sure I was going to kill all of my tomato plants.  Every last one. There are three that now are beginning to look normal to me, and there have been days when I wouldn't have put even their chances very high.  They have not gotten tall, but are finally deepening in color and widening out into robust plants. I even picked up one nursery plant as insurance and planted one plant that I had completely snapped off in April (which therefore spent all of the rotten weather in May recovering under grow lights).  It is now tucked into the end of a raised bed which it will have to share with some other stuff.  Tomatoes are remarkably resilient when they are not pouting.  I have three more in the ground elsewhere but they are still pouting.

Black Brandywine

They are even beginning to bud.

Black Brandywine

I may move the tomato containers to the other side of the garden.  They are currently on the north side of fence posts where they get full morning and full evening sun, but diverted or dappled sun from about 11am to 3pm.  I think that is what saved them.  They were sunburning faster than they were acclimating for awhile.  Even though they were slowly hardened off, when the hot temperatures and clear days finally arrived (abruptly), they were mostly accustomed to clouds and coolness.  Now they are ready for full sun.

First Flower on the Barlow Jap

There is a lot going on in the Pole Bean bed.

In the center I have just transplanted pickling Cucumbers which I seeded in the cold frame.  I've had poor luck direct seeding cucumbers so I've stopped trying.  In the shade of the cucumbers I transplanted some of the direct seeded lettuce.  My older lettuce was sort of boring with mostly romaine lettuces so I grabbed some of the fancier varieties out of the crowd.  Any way you look at it, I have a lot of lettuce.

The Pole Beans have their first true leaves.  I have been filling in with more seeds because some seedlings did get snipped off.  No worries though.  I have enough seeds.

I transplanted my summer squash in and around the weed potatoes.  I seeded a couple more and plan to put at least one more Cue Ball plant where there is currently a nice bushy potato plant.  It never hurts to have some later plantings waiting in the wings.

The Summer Squash are under the wire cloches

I have thinned the first planting of Sweet Corn (Gotta Have It).  The germination rate was super so I had to snip off quite a few.  The second planting of a different variety ( SS3778R Hybrid) had poorer germination so I'm having to replant a dozen or so but again, I had leftover seeds so no problem.

Gotta Have It Sweet Corn

The Cabbages I got from the nursery transplanted well and are taking off.

Cabbages

The Lima Beans (Butterbeans) are out from under their protective cover.

Lima Beans

My Surecrop Strawberries are setting and looking pretty good for first year plants.  "They" say to pinch off the first year flowers to let the plants get established, but I've never done that.  I do discourage runners the first year.  I usually have more than enough berries anyway.  I just want a few for salads.  I can easily be over run with berries!

Other gardening activities:  I've gotten all of my herbs planted.  The Potatoes were put into grow-bags yesterday.  I have leftovers.  I'm thinking about ordering some more grow-bags, but I only want a few, not a dozen, and it looks like a lot of a dozen is the most cost effective.  I don't really want that many grow-bags hanging about.  Should I or shouldn't I?  Maybe I'll spend too much money on some pretty colored ones...

There are Okra seedlings hardening off.  Those will go in patio pots.  I've been through the landscaping a second time weeding and fertilizing.  A few things still need to be done with the perennials.   We got the front porch washed and opened up yesterday.   I'm ready to sit in the shade and watch things grow.