End of June Tasks

 

 

• Mow the front lawn
• Look for rain dates to put down next round of fertilizer
• Water the front bed.

• 1 full round of fertilizer in all Garden Beds.  
• Continue to clear out Fig area on side of shed
• Mix up container soil
• Up plant fig trees in two fabric containers

• Place three U-posts in fig area 
• Stretch cable between posts, using turnbuckles
• Begin using espalier  techniques for trellising figs
• Pot up other fruit vines:  grapes, blackberries

 

May in the Garden

At the beginning of May, it's time to check in with the outside garden. 

According to the schedule, the Spring garden should be in full swing.  Seedlings we planted in late March and April should now be reaching maturity and in the process of being harvested.

For the Red Romain and Buttercrunch lettuce, that is definitely the case.  I did a series of plantings about a week apart, and the earliest plantings are fully mature and ready for harvest.  In fact, I have harvested outside leaves as well as one whole heads of buttercrunch.  The red and white radishes have been plentiful as well.  Growing beside them, the onions have leafed out and are holding their own.  Their height is allowing them to thrive, even though the lettuce is crowding them at the base.

The other bed was planted later, with Bok Choi, Swiss chard and Garlic.  Despite  later start, the Bok Choi have grown tremendously from their seedling stage and have put on plenty of major leaves in a short amount of time.  Both of these beds have been mulched with grass clippings to retain moisture and help with weeds.

At the far end of the bok choi bed, I've already planted three peppers and two basil.  While they are not suffering at all, they aren't actually growing and putting on any new leaves, either.  The truth is that the weather is still too cool for summer crops, or has been until recently.  While we've had pleasant days in the 70s, we've had just as many days in the 50s and nights in the 40s.  All the peppers can do is sulk and hopefully develop their root structure.

The general guideline is that summer crops like peppers and tomatoes really won't do much in the garden until after Memorial Day.  That's the  marker for putting in tomatoes.

Inside, the summer seeds have all germinated, but they are proceeding at different rates:

The roma and cherry tomatoes have exploded with growth and are ready to be transplanted into pots.   The peppers are taking their time, as are the big boy slicing tomatoes, who wish the roma would go away and give them some light.  On the right, the basil are holding their own, but in between are some seedling big boys.

At the other end, the peppers have sprouted along with the ground cherries, both of which are growing with modest enthusiasm.

Summer Seeds

The time of the Cool Season crops is nearly over. My napa cabbage is going to seed, although the bok choi is beautiful. I know it's only a matter of time for it as well, though. I have been harvesting whole heads of cabbage and lettuce, recently, to hit the 1/3 target by the end of April, and that's mostly been achieved.
 April Challenges:
1. Remove and safely store the row covers. Well, the covers are removed, but I cant get a solid day of sunshine to dry them out for storage. So they are lying flat in the back yard.

2. Harvest at least 1/3 of your cool season crops. This has not been achieved. I've brought in 1/3 of my napa cabbage and butter crunch lettuce, but very little of the Bok Choi, Chard, and Kale. The last two freeze rather well. I definitely need to be more aggressive with my harvest.

3. Sow warm season seeds. Here, however, I've done much better.

 

Here, I have Tomatoes on the far right, Peppers in the center, Nasturtiums on the middle left, and a row of Dill on the far left.  Once again, I have been tremendously impressed with the Aerogarden's ability to sprout nearly everything.

Below are the dill, nasturtiums and peppers. Several of the Nasturtiums have come up, but not all of them have spread full cotyledons.  All the Dill is up, and most of the peppers but there are at least 2 cells that have produced nothing.

 

On the other side, the many rows of tomatoes are growing well.  I have three rows of tomatoes, with the third row (from the right) a patio cherry tomato that is designed to be self-dwarfing.  Other tomatoes include Roma, Better Boy.  Basil is in the fourth row.

 

I can see that 2-4 seeds sprouted per cell, so some painful thinning will have to take place in the future.  This is at about 7 days since sowing