Spring Garden Retrospective - Part Two

I hope part two of this series is shorter than part one, it should be because there has been less going on in Bed #2.

When I reported on this bed at the end of March it was more than half full of developing alliums, a patch of Sonora wheat, and a thicket of Monticello poppy seedlings, not to mention the perpetual chamomile volunteers popping up all over the bed.

Let's start with that patch of wheat. This is an heirloom soft white wheat called Sonora. It has been grown in North America since Spanish colonial days and was widely grown in California but is now a rarity, although it is making something of a comeback. It looks pretty healthy here.

April 28

But wait, look at it from this angle. The plants on the right are a bit greener, more upright, and taller.

April 28

The disparity is more pronounced less than two weeks later. Its difficult to make out well in this photo, but the plants on the right are sporting seed heads while the plants on the left are just barely starting to show them.

May 8

Here's some of the seed heads 10 days later.

May 18

Another 10 days later and the disparity between the two sides of the wheat patch is even more apparent. The soil for the wheat patch was prepared all at the same time with the same amendments and planted with seeds from the same source and all planted at the same time. There should be not be such a marked difference in the two sides of the patch. So why is there such a difference? At first I thought it might be that the drip lines on one side weren't working properly and the runty side was too dry. Certainly a possibility since my winter garden this year was more dependent on irrigation than usual because our rainy season didn't materialize. But no, the drip lines are all working well enough. It seemed like a mystery until it struck me that the healthy patch is growing where my eggplant grew last year. Huh? Eggplant? Well, it's not the eggplant that gets the credit, it's most likely the mycorrhizal innoculant that I used when I planted the eggplant. It's the only difference that I can think of. And by the way, the eggplants were really healthy and productive last year.

May 28

Isn't that pretty! The kernels of wheat are getting to be big enough to start sampling. They are far from ripe right now, but they are tender and surprisingly sweet.

May 28

Here's the patch on June 3.

June 3

 Look at those heads, they are getting heavier by the day. I wish the whole patch looked like that.

June 3

By the end of April it was obvious that the garlic that I grew from some of saved heads from last were not going to amount to much. They got off to a very slow start and never did well.

April 28

In the photo below you can see the runty garlic on the bottom left, the happy garlic on the bottom right and the onions behind the garlic.

May 18

Here's a better shot of the happy garlic. It's two different varieties, the plants on the left with the leaves that are starting to yellow are Inchelium Red and the greener leafed ones on the right are Spanish Roja. Those two varieties should produce enough to keep me in garlic until next year.

May 18

I cleared out most of the runty garlic by the end of the month and I pulled out the newspaper sheets from most of the bed. I left the newspaper that is mulching the happy garlic because it's still growing.

June 3

I've been watching the onions develop bulbs for the past two months, especially the Red Candy Apples because they have not been producing flower stalks. Big fat stalks with skinny bulbs here.

April 28

The bulbs are fattening up which makes the stalks look skinnier.

May 11

And finally the bulbs are fat enough to bump up against each other and the necks are bending over. When the necks started to bend over I removed the mulch and the drip lines. I you look at the overview photo of the allium bed a few photos back you can see how they are all starting to lay down, mostly in the same direction. Those are all the Red Candy Apples, the Superstar and Candy onions still had strong upright necks.

May 28

The Candy onions produce really big bulbs, too bad most of them tried to bloom. I harvested all the ones that tried to bloom and ate them fresh. Here's one that cooperated. There's also a few Superstar white skinned onions left that didn't try to bloom, those are also producing big bulbs for the most part. All three varieties of onions should have done well in my garden since they are day-neutral. I suspect the unusual heat waves in January may have been the reason they bloomed early. At least I now know that the Red Candy Apple onion is a good one for me to grow. I may give the other two varieties a try again next year and hope that the weather returns to somewhat normal (there's a possibility of an El Niño so who knows!).

There's the lovely green allium bed in late April, note that the hillside is somewhat green also.

April 28

This section of the bed is home to some runty shallots which I planted too late and then let them become overshadowed by volunteer chamomile. And there's a bare spot that at one time had a mix of volunteer Monticello poppies and chamomile. I got it cleared out in preparation to plant some brassicas and then never got around to planting them.

April 28

Instead I let the chamomile bloom.

May 11

And bloom...

May 18

And then I finally pulled it out as well.

May 28

Some of the poppies got to stay.

May 28

And I finally got around to planting some Amazing Taste cauliflower and ...

June 3

Di Ciccio broccoli. If you are wondering about the water bottles on the stakes, they are another attempt to keep the birds at bay. We have a pretty constant breeze at this time of year and the bottles rattle around on the stakes, the movement and noise seem to scare the birds.

June 3

Ok, that's it for Bed #2, I hope to get the time to report on the other two beds this weekend.