Another cold Memorial Day followed by three weeks (and counting) cold days. Sometimes, we get in the seventies. Once or twice, in the upper eighties and low nineties. But preceded and followed by dreary fifty and sixty degree days.
We planted most of the remainder of the garden on Memorial Day weekend but kept some back such as melons and cucumbers. Then, we had lost any time buffer and were forced to put out squash, sugar beet, and melon sets. They have taken their own sweet time recovering.
We have three gardens: the main garden (shown above), the raised beds, and the east garden. The east garden has sweet corn, pinto beans and long beans, fava beans, sorghum, and an asparagus bed. The sweet corn has been weak and we held off planting the pinto beans around it—sort of like a three sisters arrangement where one of the sisters has left in a huff—for fear the climbing beans would choke them. But we finally had to. The pintos haven’t come up yet but all the other beans have.
We’re also trying an odd woolly tomato. It seems more robust than the other varieties. If it tastes good, we might add it to the repertoire.
In the main garden, the beans have all sprouted: standard “white” beans and black turtle, both climbing varieties. For bush beans, we chose purple dove. It’s an experiment. We planted six varieties of squash including two pumpkins. Three of them seem to have hardened up but the remainder still look sickly. We’ll see. The zucchini and sweet potatoes look quite good. I’m not worried about the zucchini but temperature will tell the sweet potato tale so we will see. Carrots are coming up. We’re also trying sugar beets again but they’re not looking good. We grew sets and they have never thrived. This year, I’m also trying albino beets which are supposedly able to be sugared.
We harvested all of the red radishes and some of them were woody. I ate the remainder. Wendy put them in a bowl with vinegar and a little sugar. After a week or so, they were a delicacy. Excellent for salads. But also by themselves.
In the raised beds, the potatoes are vigorous. We have a new strawberry bed which is feeding us daily. The other beds have some carrots, peppers, basil, etc. None of them are ready for any sort of harvest. We have many allium beds of various types: onions, leeks, garlic, shallots, and the like. Some of them are being harvested but many don’t like the cold.
There are some oddities around the yard. I keep trying to grow birdhouse gourds and failing. I planted sets and nothing came up. They were outside in a tray when we did have a couple of warm days and they peeked out. I’ve planted them but they do not like the cold. I’m thinking next year there might be a sets that I raise in the house where it’s warmer. The gourds didn’t wake up until the nighttime temperature was above sixty. I’m thinking the same about some of the others such as the sugar beets or the melons. The day temperature in the greenhouse is warm but at night it’s only guaranteed to fifty degrees. I think that might be too cold for some of these.
We have a good pear crop coming. Quince and apple, too. A couple of the new peach trees have wee peaches. Now, if we can just keep the chipmunks at bay… We’re having grape problems. Between caterpillars and some kind of fungus. The two may be related. I’d spray more but there’s been so much rain, what’s the point? If we get a little good weather, I’ll spray the dickens out of them.
Last year I had some health problems that kept me from attacking much of the garden and fruit tree issues. The issues never go away. They just get bigger. But, this year it looks like we’re more on top of them.
Oh, and here are some articles on how Trump is destroying science:
- NASA Not Being Made Great
- Cuts At NIH Is Not Making America Healthy and here
- AI To Approve Drugs Rather Than Humans
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