Early June Update

Just some snapshots to record progress this year.  The peas look lush and full and the leaf lettuce at their feet has filled in well.

Pea Plantings 1 and 2

Pea Plantings 3 and 4 as well as lettuce

The first planting from April 1st is finally blooming.

The cole crops look good.

A couple of the broccolis and cabbages are forming heads.

Tomatoes, Onions, Basil

Pole Beans

I have a tray of Durango Marigolds ready to plant beside the pole beans now that I am done covering them.  They are hardened off and are going to have to deal with hot weather this week as a transition.

Durango Marigolds

I planted out the cucumbers that were ready.  Two picklers and two slicers.  The later sown plants will be ready on a few days.

It is amazing how fast things pick up when given room to grow.  The zucchini plants have tripled in size in three days.

The direct sown cantaloupes are sluggish, but now they have a row on sunflowers down the middle to set a good example.  Because the sunflowers were a little leggy I gave them some wind deflection.

The Vanilla Cream Marigolds and Apricot Profusion Zinnias are beginning to show some nice color along the Dahlia bed.  All of the Dahlias are up although I did have to take one out and put it in a pot in the cold frame to get it going.  It was a Bloomquist Jean which did awesome the first year but lagged way behind and never flowered last year.  I will have to remember to give it a head start next year.

After I get the rest of the Cucumbers and the Durango Marigolds transplanted, everything will be in the ground and I will be in the Weed Water and Wait stage.

Weeding

 I finally got around to some weeding today.  I weeded the Cole Crop bed in preparation for mulching it with shredded leaves.  The Cabbages are beginning to form heads and the Romaine Lettuces at each corner are of a useful size with three or four smaller ones interspersed for later harvest.

Next I need to weed the Blackberry bed and mulch that too.  The thornless Black Raspberry plant finally arrived to join the thornless Blackberries that I planted last fall.

My Tickled Pink red grape vine is finally putting out some leaves thanks to those two days of hot weather.  The  white grape is alive and has tiny green buds on it but still no leaves.

I have begun prepping the bed for the Tomato Plants but will wait until this weekend to plant them.  I have two Perpetuo variegated Basil plants on the end, and Candy onions along the sides.  I have seeded more Candy onions for a later crop.

The first and second plantings of peas need to be weeded also.  Those are not all lettuce seedlings along the sides.

Many Peppers and Tomatoes still to plant and distribute and some experimental Marigold cuttings.

I seeded Cucumbers and Summer Squash inside and placed them under a grow light since everything is still set up in the workshop.  As soon as the cotyledons appear I will relocate them to the cold frame to grow in the sunshine.

Laster yesterday afternoon when I wend out to close down the cold frame I noticed that one of my transplanted Coleus had snapped, maybe in the wind.  I didn't notice any damage as I was planting.  I brought the "cutting" inside and put it in water to watch it root.  I can always use one more Coleus...

Transplanting Peppers

 Yesterday I started transplanting Peppers.  I am using PRO-MIX Organic Vegetable & Herb Mix which I have used for several years.  I prefer the compressed bales because they are dry to start with.  Last year I bought the smaller bags and the soil was wet right out of the bag.  This year I am finding that the mix is again holding quite a bit of moisture.  When I transplanted the Tomatoes the other day I added both Perlite (to improve drainage) and Espoma Bio-Tone Fertilizer.  I did the same for the Peppers.  I need the soil to dry out at least in 48 hours with a fan.  The added Perlite seems to be helping with the Tomatoes.  When I bump up from the cells I go to 3.5" pots.  I have a lot of 4" pots and only a few 3.5" accumulated from buying plants over the years.  The 4" take up too much space and too much soil so I purchased 3.5" to round out what I already had. With that size you can fit 18 plants instead of only 15 in a 1020 tray 

I planted six different varieties of Ornamental peppers and some Hot Peppers that I use for pickling.  I may as well buy Bell Peppers, because they are easy to find and ornamentals are impossible.  I got two to four specimens of each variety plus some spares.

These are the spares.

I potted them up too and kicked them out in the cold frame to fend for themselves.

The Durango Marigolds shot right up.  I planted Red (a "red" Marigold is really deep, burnt Orange), Yellow and Bolero which is Yellow tipped with Red.  I get really tired of plain Orange Marigolds.  It seems like every seed mix gets more than it's share of Orange so I mix my own.

The Cole Crops are thriving in the cool, wet weather.

And so are the Peas

1st and 2nd planted rows

Direct Sown Lettuce

3rd and 4th plantings of Peas

My Strawberry bed is amazing this year!  They are apparently loving the cooler weather and blooming their heads off!  This end of the bed is my favorite, dependable June bearing plants called Honeoye in their second full year (planted fall of 2023) and the far end is Day Neutral variety called Seascape which should produce all summer.  I ordered and planted the Seascape last spring.  Technically this is their second year but the bare root plants were actually pretty pitiful when they arrived and didn't really root in and begin growing until last fall.  

Now all I have to do is protect the berries from the slugs and the Chipmunks.

Planting Cole Crops

 The rule of thumb for setting out Cole Crops is to transplant them between 4 and 6 weeks after sowing.  Five weeks, when I usually transplant, would be on Friday.  But they could not look nicer and the weather suits so I put them out today.

Below is a picture of my Cole Crops from 2024 on the same date.  They looked great in the past.  This year, with the Vego LED Grow Lights they look more than great.  I am very happy with those lights.

I had already organized the hoops and insect netting.  I used a power auger to drill the holes in undisturbed soil which hosted Sweetcorn last season.

The placement of plants in this bed is fairly critical.  This is my plan:  The Belstar Broccoli will continue to produce all season, but the Flamestar Cauliflower will not.  So the Broccoli should be in the center where the hoops are highest, and should alternate with Cauliflower because the Cauliflower plants will be cut out leaving more room for the Broccoli to grow.  The Cabbage can go along the edge, alternating Golden Acre and Caraflex because Caraflex shoudl be ready earlier.  The four corners don't really have enough room for Cabbages or Broccolis so I planted Romaine Lettuce.

I used Espoma Bio-Tone Starter Fertilizer in the holes and watered them in well.

The Insect Netting will offer some shelter from both wind and sun.

Because I did not harden them off before setting out, I placed an additional shade cloth to block the sun.  I have used this lazy, non-hardening off, method for years now and it has worked well for me.  The forecast is for warm, cloudy weather which is much better for them than hot sun.

I will still need to mulch the bed with shredded leaves to keep down weeds as I do each year.  And, they don't make much of a picture, but the Peas planted on April 1st are coming up today right on schedule.

Fertilizer Friday

 Friday is the day that I make sure everything has been fertilized as needed, both the annuals and vegetables.  I use a combination of side dressing with dry fertilizer and watering in with some fish emulsion.  We sure don't need to water considering the inch and a quarter of rain we got on Monday, but following up with a liquid fertilizer makes sure any dry fertilizer is off of the leaves.  This week I am out of the general Garden-Tone, so until I get back into town to stock up I am using the amendments I have on hand.  Bone Meal (Potassium) for the root crops and Blood Meal (Nitrogen) for the others.

The Cabbages, Broccoli and Cauliflowers have been enjoying the cool weather.  And they are also completely protected from the hail.  They have no idea what all the fuss is about.

The Peas and Lettuce also miraculously sustained little hail damage and are going about their business as if nothing has been happening,

That last storm on Monday was a doozy.  We got over an inch of rain in about 20 minutes combined with 5 to 10 minutes of huge hail.  I have spent the past few days picking up dead leaves and putting away frost cloths and the garden in general looks more like a garden and less like a war zone.  The tree leaves that came down in the hail made the whole area look as if it had been put through a blender.

The Dwarf Tomatoes and the Onions look pretty good.  The Micro Tomatoes in the pots are blooming and the Dwarfs have buds on them.  They will not be early like last year but otherwise they should be fine.

The Indeterminate Tomatoes are growing slowly but are nice and green.  They need some sun.  We have had rather overcast days and cool nights.

The Bell Peppers in the ground look abominable but they are all flowering and producing peppers.

The same Bell Pepper varieties in the pots look better but are not producing yet.  I guess it must be true that when a plant thinks it is going to die it gets busy with the reproduction end of things.

Havasu Hot Peppers

The Sweet Corn is fine.  There are some tattered leaves but they have been making good use of the rain and growing well.  This crop could use some heat too.

Solstice Sweet Corn

Gotta Have It Sweet Corn

The Pole Beans are fine.  Last year the timing was such that the new plants put out their first leaves right before the June heat wave and got burned to a crisp.  This year's weather is much more gentle on them.

Monte Gusto Yellow Pole Beans

I frequently have a problem with grass hoppers or earwigs or something munching on the green beans as they put out their cotyledons.  I reseeded the row below and covered it.  I was planning to complete the row down the center of the bed with a second seeding next week, but I will probably wait until the end of the month now.

Seychelles Green Pole Beans

The Cucumbers and Cantaloupes will soon be ready to transplant.  The 6 pack that looks empty is one kind of Cantaloupe that is just now cautiously popping through.

Dill and Sunflowers

Perennial Herbs, Sweet Potatoes, Carrots

Potatoes
with Bone Meal on their leaves

The Flea Beetles have awakened.  I seeded some Mustard along the Potatoes that is just now coming up.  That should attract them away and I can sprinkle that with Diatomaceous Earth.

The annuals surrounding the Dahlias are showing color.
You can't see it in the photo but I have corner posts and have constructed a protective room out of netting.  It saves me a lot of spraying.

The other side of the Dahlias

This spring I ordered in a container raspberry plant.  They are supposed to stay compact and bush like.  It has just begin to put on some real growth.  All I want is enough to nibble on.  Something that I can protect from the birds and bear without too much trouble.  They can have all of the blackberries in the briar patch on the other side of the fence.  The Raspberries are mine!

Bushel and Berry Raspberry Shortcake

The strawberries are producing well now but they are not sweet because we have had overcast days.  They only sweeten in clear sunshine which is not a problem if you are making jam, but is a bummer when you are just snacking on them.  I need 4 cups to make a batch of jam.  Even though half of this bed was just planted this spring, I have not given up hope of a batch of freezer jam.