Friday, June 9, 2017

The Garden on June 8, 2017

A quick update on the garden. I've managed to get quite a bit done now that I'm over the worst of the cold (nearly 3 weeks and I'm still coughing though, this crud lingers).


I got the tomato/pepper bed planted - 12 tomato plants, 11 varieties. 53 pepper plants, 22 varieties.


The bed where the favas were growing is nearly ready for planting. I need to replace the drip lines because 4 years of hard well water has got many of the emitters clogged up or slowed to a trickle. I'll be planting mostly corn and beans in this bed.


The first round of summer vegetables are growing quickly. The Tromba D'Albenga squash are already starting to reach for their trellis. You can see the Romanesco zucchini beyond starting to spread out.


The cucumber babies are starting to take off. The sleeves protect the tender young seedlings from munching sow bugs and provide a bit of warmth. Three of those plants are survivor of my experiment with sowing pre-germinated seeds and the other three are from the backups that I sowed into pots. Birds got one seedling and the other two were weak.

Italian Mountain and Corsican Basils

The basil plants are getting more bushy, and that's after I've harvested the central stems on each plant.
Persian Basil
Aspabroc
The Aspabroc (aka Broccolini) is producing the first heads.

Aspabroc

There will be some big heads of lettuce hitting the harvest basket in the next few days.


On the other hand, the onions will be runts.


You can see how bad the greens look, Downy Mildew really took its toll.


On the bright side, even though I lost all of the I'itoi onions in the garden I had some shriveled up bulbs left in my pantry and to my great delight every single bulb that I planted sprouted. These will not go into the garden, I'll be planting them in containers and will grow them far from the garden with its multitude of Downy Mildew spores.

That's the latest, now I've got to get some more work done in the garden.

8 comments:

  1. Even your watering is perfect! I admire your detailed plantings very much.

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  2. Things are really moving along in your garden. I'm loving the squash and cucumbers and how well they are sizing up! Our very cool weather had things crawling, but it's supposed to warm up significantly over the next week so I'm hoping for a BIG growth spurt.

    And that's some gorgeous lettuce! I'm still waiting for mine to size up - this time, it's not the weather that's affecting it as much as that 'pesky wabbit' who has been nibbling all the leaves, so it's half the size it should be.

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  3. My mind boggles ar the number of peppers that you grow

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  4. Your beds look fantastic even when just barely planted! My plants never seem to go in quite as symmetrically as yours. My mind also boggles with the number of peppers!

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  5. The I'itoi onions are real survivors for sure. I hope your container treatment lets them escape the mildew. The sleeves are a great idea to keep the sow bugs away. I am thinking they would deter slugs too, which are a problem here (along with the sow bugs).

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    Replies
    1. I'm not sure the sleeves would keep the slugs away, they could slime their way up and over, but it might discourage them.

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  6. You're working way too hard for a sick person. But it's understandable being the busy season in the garden. I'm always amazed at your giant heads of lettuce, but that's awful about the powdery mildew.

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