How My Garden Grew in June

Last week in the plot, getting bushy. 

At the beginning of June, the sunflowers were only hinting at the obstacles they would soon become. At this point I moved a few to the common beds and left the rest, hoping a few would be the offspring of the unusual red/brown variety I planted last year. 

A week later almost everything in the plot doubled in size. I dug up 16 marigold plants to transplant at my parents' home and could have taken out 2 dozen more. I have no recollection of spreading the seeds. I think they just fell from the plants at the end of last season. Marigolds thrive in my plot. 

The Ramapo tomato really became a monster by mid-June. The plant was covered with flowers and itty bitty tomatoes by this point. The miniature musk melon plants in the lower left of the plot also began to grow at this time.  Everything is green and happy so it's difficult to distinguish one thing from the next in the photo. 

This was the situation last week in the garden. I added some stakes in the rear of the plot for the Chinese yard long beans to climb and trained the rest to the sunflowers. I moved lettuce seedlings out from under the sunflower canopy. I trimmed sunflower leaves and staked the plants to open up some space around my cute little white eggplant seedling. And I moved several more marigolds to the common beds. 

And the garden cat just sat there. In case you didn't know, being really cute can be exhausting. 

Spring Harvests

All things leafy have been the stars of the harvest basket this month. I've been picking almost daily salads of mixed lettuces and baby Ragged Jack kale. Mixed in, there's been the occasional radish and baby carrot too. 

I had a very old packet of leftover radish seeds that I sprinkled here and there. Only a few sprouted and many bolted during a couple of warm afternoons. The ones that made it to bulb form were crisp and spicy. 

The two strawberry plants I have tucked in a corner gave us a handful of the sweetest fruit I've ever tasted this year. The plants don't seem to love the location, in fact they want to spread into the walkways instead of the rest of the bed. I keep them around because they're so polite :)

The Swiss Chard plant I bought on a whim from Priapi has been very happy. We sauted a bunch last week and the flavor was exceptional compared to the watery stuff you can get at the grocery store. I'll get a couple more cuttings from it I think. 

I'm not sure where the orange carrots came from, but they're definitely sweeter than the underdeveloped yellow variety. 

I'll put together a post showing how my "jungle" has grown over the past month.