Garden Update - Area #2

Area #2 of the garden, where the drip irrigation was recently finished (hurray!), holds 4 beds - #9 through #12.

This year, bed #9 holds shelling peas, cucumbers and Tromboncino squash.

Shelling peas in back with cucumbers in front &

Tromboncino squash on the far left

Harvest Monday - June 27, 2016

It was a good evening yesterday.  Why?  Because of the soft patter of rain falling.  Finally.  It wasn't a huge downpour, but enough to make everything look a wee bit fresher this morning.  They are calling for more rain on Friday...but that is a LONG way off when it comes to the forecast.

So on to the harvests - first up are the newbies.  It's scape time & most of them were ready to harvest.

Garlic Scapes

Garden Update - Hilltop

Here we are at the end of June & the theme remains the same….HOT and dry.  Our grass is in a sad, sad state:

Those patches of green...weeds (of course!)

I’ve started to water it – something that I don’t normally do, even during those brief periods in midsummer when it turns brown.  However, I learned my lesson on waiting too long to water a few years ago when we had a similar drought – the grass went from dormant to dead and weeds filled in the empty spots.  So, I’m lugging the hose around and doing what I can to get some moisture into the ground.

Harvest Monday - June 20, 2016

Feeling hot, hot, hot...that's been the theme (again!) over the past week or so.  With temperatures into the 30's most days (86F+), I still get out there for a few hours each day, although not nearly as long as I would like.

The lack of rain is another concern - I would be surprised if we received more than an inch in the past couple of months.  We are "supposed" to have some good rain this afternoon - forecasts are not guarantees, so fingers crossed that this one is correct.

On a very positive note, the drip supplies have been delivered.  I was going to get started on it this past weekend but with Fathers Day celebrations, both days were basically accounted for.  I'll be doing one veg area at a time, starting with the hilltop.  As with most other projects, I know this one will take me longer than I anticipate, so I'm trying to include a big buffer when it comes to timing.

And now on to the harvests.  This week, there were a few newcomers & first up is the chamomile:

Chamomile

Harvest Monday - June 13, 2016

You know what the best thing about growing your own is?  Every week there seems to be at least one new veg or fruit coming out of the garden.  And this past week, the newcomer was….

Fort Laramie strawberries
 

Yum!  This harvest actually snuck up on me – I’ve been so busy in the front garden (in fact, we even hired some help to deal with a couple of particularly bad areas), that I didn’t realize the strawberries were starting to ripen until late last week.

Harvest Monday - June 6, 2016

It's been a very busy week with a lot of transplanting and seeding.  The big push came on Saturday as I knew we were in for a rainy Sunday & wanted to take advantage of that by getting everything into the ground.  I transplanted the tomatoes, eggplant, cucumbers, squash, basil, as well as a few ornamentals.  I also seeded the carrots (finally!!) and corn.

We have had some very high temps over the past couple of weeks, with many days in the high 20's & humidex readings in the 30's (80F+/90F+).  And what does that mean for the harvest?  Well, one of the first things to be impacted was, not surprisingly, the spinach.  The sustained high temps did not agree with the Viroflay spinach, which promptly started to bolt.  I quickly harvested what I could (which wasn't much at all) and pulled the plants.

Viroflay spinach