The mid June garden is growing pretty good despite the very hot and dry weather over the past 5 days. The garden this time of year seems to grow overnight. Harvest began on the broccoli yesterday, with more heads to come, although it looks like most of the heads will be a smaller this year, probably due to the weather. The spring planted peas are suffering with all of the heat but, with any luck, I should be able to start harvesting at least some peas over the next few weeks. I have started watering the garden over the last week because it has been so dry. The Red Norland potatoes have just about finished growing, but I did water them a few days ago due to the fact that they are growing in raised beds. The potatoes growing in the grow bags need to be watered every other day in this heat. Some potatoes might be able to be harvested in about another 2 weeks. Some of my onions tops, especially the Red Candy Apple onions, have started to flop over. Some of the spring planted Kohlrabi are nearing harvestable size. Some of the lettuce plants (Salad Bowl and Green Ice) will be pulled up and fed to the chickens over the next few weeks, as they are starting to bolt. The Sierra and Nevada lettuces are still doing okay. I did place shade cloth over the lettuce to help them with the heat stress. The bush green beans have started to flower, so I expect I will be harvesting some beans in about 3 weeks or so. The Silver Queen white corn is growing like mad and is already at least 3 feet tall. The peppers are growing really well and I even noticed a few small peppers on the Hungarian Wax pepper plants. The Diva cucumbers are starting to climb, but have not flowered as of yet. No pictures with this post, but look for pictures of the garden in my next post, coming soon. Stay Cool and Happy Gardening!!
Category Archives: Summer Gardening
Mid May Update – New Blog Feed Email Provider
Been very busy in the garden over the last week. All of the spring garden has now been planted including transplanting of all the celery, pepper and tomato seedlings. I am trying something new this year with the tomatoes. I am using black landscape fabric around the plants to see if it reduces the leaf disease issue that I have had over the last several years. Harvest continues on the lettuce, which is growing like crazy. There has been a little bit of slug damage on the lettuce, but it is not too serious at the moment. Harvest also continues on radishes and green onions. The potatoes continue to grow nicely in the raised beds and in the grow bags and some of the vines are approaching 8 inches tall. Cucumbers, bush green beans, and bush lima bean seeds were also recently sown. I am trying a new pole green bean this year called Rattlesnake. It is an old heirloom variety. I will keep you posted on how it performs. The Silver Queen white sweet corn seeds were sown about 9 days ago and they have already emerged. See pictures of some of my garden plots at the end of this post.
If you are reading this blog post via email, then you might have already noticed that I have a new blog feed provider, followit. You might want to customize how your feed is delivered to you by visiting followit through the link provided in the blog feed email. My old feed blog provider, Feedblitz will no longer work. A few of you might also be receiving emails from Feedburner. I will be deleting my Feedburner account soon so you will not be receiving emails from Feedburner after it is deleted.
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Early Summer Garden Update
Sorry for the delay in posting a garden update. Wow, has time really flown by. The weather has been like a roller coaster ride. May was too cold and wet followed by a hot and dessert dry June. My garden did received some much needed rain over the last week. Despite the crazy weather, the garden continues to grow and produce.
The early summer garden is growing really well. I started harvesting broccoli on June 14th and now all of the main heads have been harvested. I just started harvesting broccoli side shoots within the last few days. The broccoli harvest has been decent, but not great this year. I have also started harvesting kohlrabi within the last week or so. Some of the kohlrabi have been really big. I have been harvesting peas over the last 2 weeks. The pea harvest has been really good this year (not sure why, I have not done anything different than in past years?). I will finish up my lettuce harvest really soon as it is getting pretty hot now. The onions tops have started to fall over, so I will be pulling those up soon and letting them dry out in the garden for a few days.
My pepper plants have really started to take off. I have even harvested a few hot banana peppers yesterday. The tomato plants have also started to look better after the wet and cold May. The cucumbers have just started to flower, so it won’t be long before cucumbers start forming. The potato vines are growing like crazy and have just started to yellow a little. Harvest should begin on these (Red Norland) in about 2 more weeks. The corn (Silver Queen) is growing really well and has just started to tassel.
I will be starting my fall seeds within the next few days. I will be starting broccoli, kohlrabi, cabbage, and lettuce in little cell six packs. I will have them growing outside on the covered back porch. The seedlings should be ready to transplant out into the garden by the first week of August.
