Late June

I fertilized again over this past weekend. 

 Middle Bed. 

I had to stake up the tomato cages to keep them upright! I found the one on the far right laying sideways a couple days ago. I think I am going to have a GREAT tomato crop this year!

East Bed. This is my beautiful butter crunch lettuce. It is quite a sight. I grabbed a couple leaves off last night and ate them up. BITTER! Ugh! I guess I'll just admire them for now. :-(

East Bed. Spinach HATES the hot weather. I planted some new. I'll try make sure it is shaded. 

 East Bed. The red sails lettuce also looks beautiful. I have not tasted this yet.

Middle Bed.

White onions are kicking the ass of the purple onions 

Middle Bed.

The purple onions 

My first yellow squash. Think I planted them a little too close together? I do. Well see how well they do in the end. 

 West Bed.

There is my squash growing up through the trellis. We'll see if they actually use the trellis as a climbing wall. The potato plant to the left is taller than the trellis.

 West Bed.

 West Bed.

Broccoli getting over shadowed by the potato plants. Lost 1 broccoli plant to shade. RIP.

 This little teeny tiny bastard and his bazillion brother, sisters, cousins and friends are having a heyday with my potatoes and radishes. I think they are aphids. I have been using an insecticidal soap on them, which seems to kill them. I just can't keep up! I pulled all the radishes because there were so many of these little pests on them. Not stellar radishes by any means. Looks like all the energy was spent growing the greens on top and not the radish underground.

 West Bed.

Pumpkins.

West Bed.

Pumpkins again.

Halfway through June

Here we are half way through June! Dan helped me build awesome trellis' for the garden today. We bought a hog panel from a ranch supply store, cut into the right lengths with bolt cutters and hinged the pieces with some extra springs that came along with my expensive compost bin from Gardener's Supply. It took about 15 minutes to make and install. It cost $22 for the panel and it made exactly two trellis' that are about 3 1/2' x 3 1/2'. See a better picture below.

I planted some more seeds today. Loose leaf red lettuce, kale, spinach, green beans and carrots. I merely sprinkled the carrot seed on the soil and lightly brushed my hands around on top of it. So few carrot seeds sprouted when I actually planted them, that I thought I would give this a try.

West Bed 

West Bed 

 

Middle Bed

East Bed 

I planted lettuce and spinach underneath the trellis. They can tolerate the shade and will hopefully thrive once the cucumbers get busy climbing.

Full Garden View 

 Trellis

I think these are brilliant!

Alli & Sidney's Garden

Well, here we are 10 days into June. My garden is making some progress and I'm not bored of it yet. 

The West bed is looking good. The potatoes are the same height as the broccoli and look like they will start shading it soon. I thinned the radishes and squash today. They looked too crowded. I need to reseed carrots and plan to seed some lettuce under the trellis for the squash. The trellis that we still need to build.

The Middle bed is also looking good. The tomatoes look fantastic and a few plants have blooms. I finally picked up some more pepper plants and put them in the ground today. I bought a couple bell peppers (even though I don't really like them. Sally does, so I'll refer to them as "Sally's peppers"), Anaheim's and poblanos. Hopefully I will be roasting some peppers come fall. Yummy! I harvested some basil this week for homemade pizza and think I probably need to make some pesto soon. I planted some cilantro today. We'll see how long it takes me to screw it up. I have never had any luck with cilantro. I don't really know how and when to harvest it. 

The East bed is still looking pretty empty. The green beans are STILL popping their little heads out of the ground. The spinach looks good. Only a few of the loose red leaf lettuce germinated. Same with the kale. The butter crunch lettuce germinated better. The cucumbers look good. And of about 12 watermelon seeds planted, only 2 seeds actually panned out to become plants. Very disappointing. I think we might have one other watermelon plant in Alli's garden. 

I'm still trying to figure out the watering system. The West and Middle beds are mulched, which really holds in the moisture. The East bed is not. I have been waiting for all the seeds to come up. I think I need to cut my water losses and just get it mulched. I can't imagine much more is going to come up this late after planting. 

I also want to comment on how well our grass looks this year. I raised up the mowing deck and have been mulching the last 3 mows. I believe this has made the difference. We've had a few really hot days in the past 2 weeks and I notice a few areas that are looking a bit dry. I think I will try to water a little longer in those zones. It is probably time to get some more fertilizer on it too.

Red Potatoes

Broccoli

 Yellow Squash & Zucchini

 Radishes (or is the plural just radish?)

 Pumpkin...finally!

 Row of peppers.

 Tomatoes

 White onions...or are they yellow? I can't recall now.

 Herbs and a few puny marigolds.

 Red onions, which are kicking the pants off the other onions.

 Cucumbers

 Plot o' greens.

 Green beans that are STILL sprouting.

 Teeny tiny watermelon plants. Damn near as slow as carrots to sprout.

 Sidney's garden, whose pumpkins are the biggest of this entire project. I attribute it to the Miracle Grow potting soil in her garden. Perhaps I should rethink my stance on chemical fertilizers in my garden.

Alli's garden, whose 1st attempt at pumpkins and watermelon failed. So we reseeded and soon her will overtake mine too!