Its mid July, and things are *just* starting to happen in the garden. Its been such a wild year for weather, we were cold and rainy for so long that nearly everything in the garden is behind where it should be. We just haven't had the sun we need for those warm weather loving crops! I saw on the news the other day that by the 1st of July last year we had 22 days with temperatures above 80 degrees. By that same date this year? Just 4 measly days of temps at 80 or above! That's a lot of sunny days that our plants missed out on. For comparison, this is what our garden looked like this time last year: How our garden grows #5. AND we started at least a month and a half later last year than we did this year! It can get a little depressing thinking about how much better things could be doing, so instead I am going to focus on the great things that are happening! Because there is a lot going on in our little patch of goodness!
Our corn patch and the kids baby pumpkin plant:
We had planned on doing two more successions of corn, but because these ones took too long to get going we ran out of time to plant more. We have baby pumpkins to make up for it though! This is the biggest of 4 tiny fruits, there are a lot more flowers on the plant though:
The cherry tomatoes have grown at least a foot in the last week, thanks to all the hot sunny weather we have been having. Unfortunately, the weeds behind them seem to have grown the same amount!
Our tiny cucumber plants. Unless things really start to get going with these two, I don't think we will be getting any cucumbers this year! Our first two plants succumbed to the wet weather, so these were planted very late in the season, probably about a month ago:
The super sugar snap pea corner before I ripped them all out this evening. They took forever to get going because of the cold and had just started to really produce well when the hot weather came last week and fried them all. Poor plants. Hopefully we will have better luck this fall!
After a really rough time battling slugs, the pole beans have pulled through and are thriving. This is the first year I have grown them, and I absolutely love them. They are so beautiful winding their way up the trellis. I have two separate plantings, with two varieties each - one for eating fresh and one that is a dry shelling bean. I am excited for them both!
The bulbing onions and shallots are doing very well! We also have green bunching onions that have been growing fast, we have been chopping a lot of those up for salads lately:
Our little patch of carrots. We have three succession plantings of three different varieties but the latest planting hasn't come up yet.
This is my muscade de province bed, bordered by 4 types of lettuce. The squash are the second planting, the first set of seeds rotted in the ground. The lettuce is the 3rd planting (different location than the first two plantings) in an attempt to outsmart the slugs that were threatening to take over this spring. It worked a little too well, now we have more lettuce than we can eat or give away!
Interesting things going on with my peppers. I have 6 store bought bell pepper plants, and something like 16 mini bell pepper plants that I started from seed. The mini's are thriving and covered in flowers and tiny peppers:
The store bought peppers are not doing nearly as well...with the exception of the one in the bottom right corner they are all scrawny and have not been putting out new growth. Matthew said he thinks we should start all our peppers from seed next year, and after seeing this side by side example of how well they are doing - I agree with him! I am not sure if our plants just got a little more TLC in the beginning or if there is something else at play here. I do hope the store bought plants perk up soon, I would love some full size peppers this year!
(click on the picture and you can really see a difference in the plants. Notice how full and green the ones at the back of the bed are - those are the mini's).
The tomatoes have all done really well this last week and are growing by leaps and bounds. We have plenty of fruits on the plants - now we just need more sun to ripen them!
This is about half of the plants, the sun was shining on the other half of the row making them hard to see in the picture:
Our bush beans are doing wonderfully!! I am so excited about these, they are another first this year and I am hoping to get large amounts to eat fresh and can. Plus, they are just beautiful when they are flowering:
I am really excited about the celery too! I had been told that you cant grow good celery here, that the stalks wont be long and delicious like the store bought ones. My plants beg to differ!
Sniff. This romanesco would have been delicious had the hot weather not gotten to it before I did!
The potatoes are one of the few plants who simply loved the rainy weather. They are growing so well that I am a little unsure of how to tame them! I planted them in a trench about 4 inches below the soil line, and have hilled them up twice. But still they keep growing, and I have no idea how long I am supposed to hill them for! I am running out of dirt, and space on the path next to them. They all seem to be happy though, producing big beautiful flowers on two of the three varieties:
One of the last cabbages for the season. These did so well, and we have really enjoyed eating them in salads (neither the kids nor I like our cabbage cooked). We have harvested 4-5 heads so far, and have two plants remaining after I picked this one tonight:
And finally, the garden from two different views:
Despite the many new challenges that we have faced this year, or maybe because of them, I am really proud of our little plot. I have already learned many lessons that I can apply next year, and have a clearer picture on what I want to devote space to and what I want to cut out. It always seems like a big garden to people when they see it, but to me it seems sort of small and I want it to be as efficient as possible. My goal is to be able provide all the veggies our family needs during our growing season. I am not there yet, but I am one step closer!
Our corn patch and the kids baby pumpkin plant:
We had planned on doing two more successions of corn, but because these ones took too long to get going we ran out of time to plant more. We have baby pumpkins to make up for it though! This is the biggest of 4 tiny fruits, there are a lot more flowers on the plant though:
The cherry tomatoes have grown at least a foot in the last week, thanks to all the hot sunny weather we have been having. Unfortunately, the weeds behind them seem to have grown the same amount!
Our tiny cucumber plants. Unless things really start to get going with these two, I don't think we will be getting any cucumbers this year! Our first two plants succumbed to the wet weather, so these were planted very late in the season, probably about a month ago:
The super sugar snap pea corner before I ripped them all out this evening. They took forever to get going because of the cold and had just started to really produce well when the hot weather came last week and fried them all. Poor plants. Hopefully we will have better luck this fall!
After a really rough time battling slugs, the pole beans have pulled through and are thriving. This is the first year I have grown them, and I absolutely love them. They are so beautiful winding their way up the trellis. I have two separate plantings, with two varieties each - one for eating fresh and one that is a dry shelling bean. I am excited for them both!
The bulbing onions and shallots are doing very well! We also have green bunching onions that have been growing fast, we have been chopping a lot of those up for salads lately:
Our little patch of carrots. We have three succession plantings of three different varieties but the latest planting hasn't come up yet.
This is my muscade de province bed, bordered by 4 types of lettuce. The squash are the second planting, the first set of seeds rotted in the ground. The lettuce is the 3rd planting (different location than the first two plantings) in an attempt to outsmart the slugs that were threatening to take over this spring. It worked a little too well, now we have more lettuce than we can eat or give away!
Interesting things going on with my peppers. I have 6 store bought bell pepper plants, and something like 16 mini bell pepper plants that I started from seed. The mini's are thriving and covered in flowers and tiny peppers:
The store bought peppers are not doing nearly as well...with the exception of the one in the bottom right corner they are all scrawny and have not been putting out new growth. Matthew said he thinks we should start all our peppers from seed next year, and after seeing this side by side example of how well they are doing - I agree with him! I am not sure if our plants just got a little more TLC in the beginning or if there is something else at play here. I do hope the store bought plants perk up soon, I would love some full size peppers this year!
(click on the picture and you can really see a difference in the plants. Notice how full and green the ones at the back of the bed are - those are the mini's).
The tomatoes have all done really well this last week and are growing by leaps and bounds. We have plenty of fruits on the plants - now we just need more sun to ripen them!
This is about half of the plants, the sun was shining on the other half of the row making them hard to see in the picture:
Our bush beans are doing wonderfully!! I am so excited about these, they are another first this year and I am hoping to get large amounts to eat fresh and can. Plus, they are just beautiful when they are flowering:
I am really excited about the celery too! I had been told that you cant grow good celery here, that the stalks wont be long and delicious like the store bought ones. My plants beg to differ!
Sniff. This romanesco would have been delicious had the hot weather not gotten to it before I did!
The potatoes are one of the few plants who simply loved the rainy weather. They are growing so well that I am a little unsure of how to tame them! I planted them in a trench about 4 inches below the soil line, and have hilled them up twice. But still they keep growing, and I have no idea how long I am supposed to hill them for! I am running out of dirt, and space on the path next to them. They all seem to be happy though, producing big beautiful flowers on two of the three varieties:
One of the last cabbages for the season. These did so well, and we have really enjoyed eating them in salads (neither the kids nor I like our cabbage cooked). We have harvested 4-5 heads so far, and have two plants remaining after I picked this one tonight:
And finally, the garden from two different views:
Despite the many new challenges that we have faced this year, or maybe because of them, I am really proud of our little plot. I have already learned many lessons that I can apply next year, and have a clearer picture on what I want to devote space to and what I want to cut out. It always seems like a big garden to people when they see it, but to me it seems sort of small and I want it to be as efficient as possible. My goal is to be able provide all the veggies our family needs during our growing season. I am not there yet, but I am one step closer!