Eat a bean!

This was one of two big harvests from last week. The Kentucky Wonder is aptly named. It has been the big winner this season. 

I've also been harvesting about a cucumber a week and a tomato a week (in addition to bottleneck and cherries here and there). I also pull 3-4 carrots and chop it all up (minus the cucumber) and sauté it for some dinner veg. It's great with a little home grown garlic and basil. 

The hot peppers are coming in now too. They love the hot weather. 

The kale is still producing too and a friend offered some mint last week that went into a very refreshing iced tea.  

The communal peach tree is ready for picking. I've brought home about a dozen little peaches for smoothies and salads. It's a nice change from all the vegetables. 

One big disappointment earlier this week was finding one of the two big Brandywine Purple tomatoes off the vine and on the ground in my plot. I'm not sure how it happened. Luckily it had just started to blush and was unmarred so I brought it home to ripen on the counter. I'll know next week how it tastes. 

The largest change in the garden this week was the removal of most of the bean plants. We're getting tired of all the beans and they're shading out the Celebrity tomato plant in the center of the plot. So here's a before and after photo so you can see the big cull in the back. 

It's a little hard to distinguish between all the greenery. The back left is now opened up. 

Last Days of Summer

First Pumpkin, Melick's Orchard, NJ

Josh and the Spotty Goat

Peek-a-boo!

Where are the peaches?

Mini Garden Harvest

Big, Green, and Bushy

Peonies

Pretty Yellow Things

Garden Jungle

Lettuce, Beans, Bolted Spinach

After a week away from the garden, I was pretty surprised at the transformation. The lettuce is gigantic and I did some major harvesting. Most of the spinach has bolted so that was pulled (and eaten). The beans are flowering. The peas, although short and preferring to spread laterally, are making plenty of flowers and pods. The beets are twice as big as they were this time last year and ditto for the carrots. Some of the radishes were large enough to eat. Two cucumber and three squash plants are beginning to look promising. The cherry tomato already has bundles of flowers and the other two are doing fine but requesting more sun and hot weather. The eggplant and hot peppers would like the same.

I missed the dramatic orange peony but the pink and white bushes were still looking lovely on Friday. There are quite a few things flowering right now and almost everything has doubled in size since last week including the little peaches on the tree. I tried to thin them out to the recommended 1 peach per 8 inches but I would need a big ladder to get any further with that project.

In regards to the squirrel problem outside my apartment, the cayenne seems to be working. I've even added a fourth pot with thyme, rosemary, and lavender.

Rain, Sun, and Rogue Peaches

We are moving into mid and late spring flowers now in the garden. These white things are going crazy. The iris have been giving me steady arrangements for a few weeks now. The peony blossoms are growing and promising a spectacular display.

This is what the plot looked like at the end of last week. I might stop by again tonight on my way home from work to see if anything's changed. We've had days of steady rain and cool weather and I think we could use some warm sunny weather now to get stuff going. Last night was in the low 40's and tonight will be just as chilly before we get up to 80 on Saturday. Maybe everything is just a little confused.

Last week I did verify that the radish seeds I planted were a mix of White Icicle and Cherry Belle. I'm hoping for more Cherry Belle than Icicle and tried to thin out the latter to make room for the sprouts that seemed slightly pink. Last year the Icicles seemed less flavorful and slightly woody in texture.

I found quite a few peach trees sprouting throughout the common areas last week and transplanted one in the pot beside my plot. Maybe one will find a future home at the Bay? We used to have a peach tree by the driveway when I was a kid.

What should I do with that last cabbage?

The Plot Thickens

I visited the garden last Friday and took some update photos as well as some Pretty Spring Flower photos. I didn't have my camera wire at home last week so they never made it up here. Yesterday I also spent some time at the garden snapping photos, planting more seeds, and even doing a little Spring Harvesting! First we have two Before and After photos with the pics I took last Friday and the ones I snapped yesterday.

You can see the cabbages are a little bigger and there are a few more green things showing up around the plot. At this point, I can locate peas, lettuce, beets, radishes, and carrots. I cannot tell which sprouts are the spinach. There are some other volunteer seeds poking up that may or may not be something from last year. A couple sprouts look like chard and there may even be a sugar baby watermelon but I won't hold my breath.

The peach tree in the garden is in full bloom now and the bee population is very busy with all the blossoms it has produced. We'll have to do some thinning if each of these turns into a little peach.

I'm hoping the peas survive this heat wave we're having (they're predicting 88 tomorrow). They haven't changed much over the past few days so I'm guessing they would prefer cooler weather. They have been joined by some squash seeds, cucumber seeds, and tomato seeds just in case.

My Big Plan included replacing the peas with some trellised vining vegetables. I'm hoping to get a cucumber plant out of the seeds I planted but if that doesn't happen I'll buy a seedling. The same goes for the tomato seeds. Last summer I saved seeds from some particularly tasty tomatoes and decided I'd give direct planting a try. The squash seeds were a mixture of acorn, crookneck, and summer. I would be very happy if one of the vines took off and made a couple of fruits.

The radish section of the plot must have turned into a lake last week during the storm. The seedlings are sprouting up in clumps rather than the tidy rows I had created for them. I filled in the gaps yesterday with additional seed.

A green leaf lettuce is sprouting. Again, the row was in disarray so I filled in areas with additional seed. I guess we're doing a little sussession planting.

The Gourmet Blend lettuce is sprouting. Three or four different leaf lettuces make up the mix. Somehow this row remained intact so between it and the next I put in additional carrots. The plan is to have the carrot tops shade the lettuce in early summer.

In other areas around the plot I put in mixed red sunflower seeds and more marigold seeds. I noticed the snapdragon plant from last year is springing to life and I added some new snapdragon seeds around it for company.

Around the garden everything is blooming. Big clumps of this white flowering stuff are everywhere!

I harvested the three chinese cabbages! I'm pretty sure the florets were a sign that it was bolting so I took action, cut it down, sauteed it with some garlic and ginger, and called it a success. It tasted good and now there's more room for other stuff like the bush beans I planted.