The Garden on April 25, 2018

Here's an update on what's going on in the garden lately. It's not a complete tour so it's not too long.

Bed No. 1
The favas are SO HAPPY! It's hard to tell from this perspective but when I walk down the path the tops are as tall as I am.

And there's lots of flowers and beans. This was the first plant to set beans. Most of the rest of the plants have smaller beans.

The Royal Snow purple podded snow peas are close to producing pods big enough to harvest.

Royal Snow Peas

The Golden Sweet snow peas were more quick to produce and I already started to harvest them this week. I sowed the Golden Sweets on January 23 and the Royal Snow on January 30 so both of them would probably have been ready to harvest at about the same time if I had sown them at the same time. Good to know for future plantings.

Bed No. 2
The Good News/Bad News Bed.
Let's get the bad news out of the way.

I thought that the 2-foot fence of hardware cloth surrounding the bed was keeping the Damn Rodents out of the bed but I guess they figured out how to climb in. I went out to the garden one morning and found that they had snacked on the cabbage plants that I had just a few days earlier freed from their cloches. The snacking stopped when I added a 2-foot cylinder of hardware cloth around each plant.

Filderkraut Cabbage

My mistake. I freed the Yellow Cabbage Collards from their cloches and then forget to add protection. The next morning I found that they had been munched. The minefield of traps was added after the damage was already done in hopes that the DR's would return to try to finish the job and get tripped up.

Trimmed Yellow Cabbage Collard

Not One Snap

The broccoli plants were enclosed in hardware cloth cylinders but one DR dug underneath and destroyed one plant. Actually, the damage wasn't quite that bad but I cut what was left of the plant and used it to bait a Ketch-All trap that sometimes works to catch rodents. No luck with that.

Once Upon A Time Broccoli

When I found that DR Destructo Incident I immediately went inside and whizzed up a batch of spicy chile concentrate and sprayed all the likely snack targets with a dose of burn your DR tastebuds solution. And then for good measure I sprinkled dried pulverized hot pepper cores on anything tempting. The rodents generally stop snacking when I dose things with hot pepper but the treatment washes away easily so I only use it if it isn't going to rain. I save and dehydrate all the spicy pepper cores that I extract when I process peppers just for this purpose.

Still Standing Broccoli with Chile Dust

Still Standing Cabbage with Chile Dust

Now for the Good News.

They Syrian Medieval Chard is bolting! Yes, that's good news because I want to save seeds for this very rare variety.

Syrian Medieval Chard

Look closely and you will see the first feathery new leaves of Orion fennel. Fennel is such a pain to get started. It takes weeks to germinate and more often than not the seeds that I sow directly in the garden don't germinate well and the spacing ends up wonky. This is my first experiment at sowing them in paper pots so it will be interesting to see how well they grow.

Orion Fennel and Italian Scallions

The beets that I started in paper pots back on February 14 are so slow to grow. Those are the ones on the right. I just set out some beets that I sowed in paper pots on March 30 and April 5, those are on the left.

Sweetheart, Golden, and Badger Flame Beets

The BEFORE shot.

The AFTER shot. Radishes are gone, arugula is harvested, and Tennis Ball butterhead lettuce seedlings are set out.

Salads waiting to happen.

Queen of Crunch and Tennis Ball Lettuces

Pai Tsai Chinese Cabbage
Baby Shanghai Pac Choi
Purple Pac Choi

Bed No. 3
Another happy to see bolter. Cilician parsley is my favorite variety of parsley these days. It's a rarity and the seeds are not easy to find so I like to save my own. I also like to sow the seeds with abandon. I've found that it's a happy companion to broccoli so I scatter the seeds around the broccoli plants and I can, or could, harvest both of them for months. My stash of seeds is dwindling and aging so it's time to renew.

I'm testing the early limit of when to plant Tromba D'Albenga squash. Last year I set the plants out on May 15 and the plants absolutely thrived so this year I'm experimenting with an even earlier start date. Last year I discovered how tasty the tender young vine shoots are and my harvest records tell me that I didn't take the vines out of the garden until December 19 or shortly thereafter because I recorded a harvest of 11.4 ounces of vine shoots on that date. My plan this year is to keep these rampant vines in check by regularly harvesting the vine shoots.

I started the plants in quart pots indoors to get them off to a quick start. Now they are under the protection of cloches to keep them cozy through our chilly nights (down to the low 40ºF's regularly) and to keep them from being snacked on by birds or rodents.

Tromba D'Albenga Baby

I'm devoting some space to potatoes this year. I hope these will be ready to harvest when there will still be time to grow some winter squash. If not the plan is to plant the winter squash close by and let the vines intermingle with the potatoes.

Potato Pot Holes

It hasn't been a great year for spinach. These are supposed to be small plants, but...

Bed No. 4 

I took no photos because nothing has really changed other than that the Frieda Worlds snow pea plants are declining because of powder mildew. I really can't expect too much more from a planting of peas that I sowed back on November 7 last year! Those plants have produced 8 pounds of peas, thank you very much.

And my parting shot is of the I'itoi onions that I'm growing in fabric pots. The pots don't seem to have been the best choice or I just need to be more diligent about watering because I think the pots dry out too quickly for the onions' liking. I'm trying to water regularly now especially since the rains seem to have taken a break for the foreseeable future so I'll see if they green up with some TLC.

I'itoi Onions

That's the latest in the garden. Thanks for taking the tour.