Tuesday, June 14, 2011

First garden pictures 2011

The garden is off to a slow start, considering that I had most of it planted by mid May. Instead of being too cold, the weather was too blazing hot and sunny, and while I thought I'd hardened the starts off well enough, I was thinking they were strong enough to survive the cool nights, and had not thought I'd have the opposite problem. The brassicas especially, had it rough, but even the tomatoes, cucumbers and basil looked weary from the intense sun and heat. This last week as brought more seasonably reasonable temperatures in addition to some rainy days- which the plants have loved.

I picked a bag of bok choy the other day. We should be eating our first salad soon and it is about time!


                       Heirloom celery - something red? and snap peas

                     Beets and shelling peas. I've succession planted beets. This is the first crop made up of Detroit Dark Red and Detroit Golden, which are suppose to be more bolt resistant to our long daylight hours.

                     Hard neck Garlic, planted in the fall and risen from deep slumber.

Zucchini. I can't take credit for these. I started three types of zucchini indoors and then again by direct seeding and none of the seeds germinated. So I bought some starts at the farmer's market. However, all my other squash; Sweet Mama, Spaghetti, Early Butternut, Yellow Crookneck, Acorn and Sweet Meat, all came up fine and are growing.

                                          Bush Beans.
                           Perennial Comfrey. I've got big plans for the comfrey - mostly medicinal, but I have looked up some culinary recipes and if I ever have an abundance I'll make garden tea with it.

                                          My squash.


And Strawberries!

 The geese are next to the garden - they would love to be in it. As it is, they get lots of weeds. So far, the geese are very mellow, and not jumpy, skittish or afraid of us as our previous ducks have been. So far, I love the geese.


                                                     Cauliflower, I think.


And carrots! These are our summer carrots for fresh eating. They are purple, red, yellow, white and orange. I planted a couple varieties of storage carrots just the other day for late fall harvest. 

While it seems as though the garden is growing slowly, I have to remind myself that it is early in the season still. There is plenty of summer left. And yet our seasons are so short. Frost is only a couple months away, September if we are lucky. We get three months of eating fresh out of the garden, peas, zucchini, broccoli, beans, greens and herbs. I am ready for the bounty to begin.

6 comments:

Unknown said...

Emily, your garden is farther along than ours! Our potatoes took almost two weeks to come up after planting - soil temp was only 50ยบ at 4" deep. :( Not enough heat to warm things up. We've got plastic spread over a bunch of the beds to help warm the soil. But the beans are finally up, peppers are kinda taking off in the greenhouse, we lost all the okra to heat, and we're still planting carrots and beets. How does your celery do? We planted some for the first time last year, and it did well, but the stuff we started from seed this year looks pitiful.

I like the geese!!

Emily said...

Denise, my celery did great last year. The year before it was too tiny and it never took off. Basically I plant it in aged goat bedding. I've read the soil cannot be too rich for it. I think it is going to do well this summer. I spread plastic over the beds to keep in moisture and increase heat, on everything I direct seed. It saves a lot of watering and improves germination especially on little seeds like carrots.

Lindsey at NW Backyard Veggies said...

I am such a voyeur. I LOVE the pics of other people's gardens.
The terraces are very interesting and I love the hoop houses, both big and small. (Hoop tunnel??)
You are one up on me, I can't even get celery to germinate!

word verification: polly - want a cracker? *duh*

Ginger said...

Great pictures, everything looks wonderfully organized!! While I was scared that I started my zukes too early, I will be eating our first later this week. My cucumbers almost died but I saved two plants, I now have a few cukes about an inch long, maybe I didn't fertilize them soon enough. I tend to forget to do that while they're indoors. I have 31 tomato plants this year, we'll see if I regret that later! Happy happy gardening and let's hope for some sunshine! Wish washy, I was hoping for rain last week to quell the fires, now I want sunshine!!

Anonymous said...

I still can't believe that your season is such a quick flash. Your garden looks great, and reminded me to get some beets in between the snap peas I sowed last weekend..

kitchen roach/galley roach said...

Wow, your garden is huge! I thought I have a large garden but you put much more effort and work in it what I can see. Looks great. We had a cold spring here in Souteast Alaska.