Our first plot is going strong - it's too crowded really. Some of the crowding we will have to live with, it's too late to move most items, but for others I am doing my best to make it work and move around what I can.
We've rented a second plot and have slowly begun setting it up, framing beds, etc. Today we made really great progress and I was able to move over two globe artichokes that were literally choking one of the beds in my first plot. Here's hoping they survive the transplant! You can see them below (before I moved them), squeezed between the corn and some beans and tomato plants.
Aaron's teepee from the first plot is growing really well and should be at the very top in a couple more weeks. In the pic above you can just see his head to the right of it's entrance, and here he is playing in front of it:
We harvested the almost-last of our first batch of lettuces today: red romaine, buttercrunch, and salad bowl. I do have two buttercrunch heads still in the ground that should last another week before I will have to pull them out. I've also transplanted seedlings of a lettuce variety called black-seeded simpson. It's supposed to handle the summer heat well, so we shall see.
Also harvested this weekend was the first of the bush beans/green beans. We will have them for dinner tommorrow. I also got, literally, a handful of soybeans this weekend. I think I would need a lot more plants to really get a soybean crop (I have 4). They were a yummy snack.
We have been harvesting carrots here and there. I really understand about soil condition now with carrots, how loose and small the particles need to be to get a good formation on your carrot. You can see from the pic that some of mine are a little wonky in shape! The last of the radishes were a harvested a few weeks ago. No one is eating them but myself so I don't think I will bother growing them again. They were a pretty variety though, Easter Egg!
I also harvested literally dozens of small maui sweet onions a week ago. I didn't understand about thinning out the sets from the nursery so they were all growing too close together and when I did try to thin them out it was too late and the tops died. So I pulled them out, dried them in the sun for several days and bagged them up to give away at work (keeping the biggest ones for ourselves). There are still about a dozen in the ground that have not died so I am hopeful those will be bigger.
Something is eating my broccoli . It's been doing so for some time but I didn't care because it was all just leaves, but now it finally has flower heads and its disappointing to see them get munched too. One of my fellow gardeners recommended next time I grow it under one of my cages so I will try that. I've also read about netting the flower heads. So we'll see if I get any harvest at all this time round and if not I will have to try something different next time. Meanwhile, all the tomato plants have tomatoes forming. This one below is the furthest along, a red pear. As for my flowers, all are doing well, and I have been able to cut roses once or twice now.
My eggplant has flowers but no fruit, it seems to be suffering from its placement right next to the broccoli. But my Anaheim chile has several chiles growing. And the corn is doing well .
That's all for now!
