The cold winter and chilly start to spring delayed some things in the garden, but never fear — gardening is happening!
The garlic survived the cold winter, and is growing well. The spring crops (beets, carrots, peas, cruciferous, greens, onions) are growing, but slowly. If we continue to have a hot May, the spinach and many of the cruciferous veggies may bolt before yielding much.
Most of the summer harvest crops are in the ground: tomatoes, peppers, potatoes, green beans, and squash. We are still babying the eggplant seedlings here, in pots, trying to get them large enough to stay ahead of the flea beetles. And we’re awaiting our shipment of sweet potato slips, but those can go in the ground any time now.
Just a few quick pics — if you want the “fancy” version of the spring garden tour, see this post from two years ago.
We went from a few weeks of small asparagus and arugula harvests, to this past weekend, when Matthew returned home with the asparagus, plus bags of kale, collards, and rapa (another green you cook), AND over five pounds of arugula (most of which he sold to Local Harvest).
The strawberries are set, and some are starting to blush. If Sir is lucky, some will ripen before he leaves for Florida next week. If the birds decide to share, it looks like we might have a decent harvest of tart cherries this spring, as well.
How does your garden grow? What crop are you particularly excited about this year?
Her Green Life 
Wow well done you have so many things growing in your garden! 🙂
🙂 HUGE GARDEN!
In my 32sf, my basil is bolting from the heat. I’m also having a hard time getting my container plants to stay adequately watered (strawberries, mint, dill, and rosemary). My fig tree is happy so far (but tiny). My broccoli has been nibbled nearly to death (runny babbits), and the bell peppers, zucchini, tomatoes, parsley, and cilantro seem to be more happy than not…
That’s quite the impressive setup you have there… drip irrigation and all! How many square feet do you have?
I decided to go “garden lite” this year, meaning that I’m skipping all of the stuff that gives me fits (like greens and cruciferous stuff) and I’m sticking with the things that are hard to kill (like potatoes). I’m doing fewer plants than usual with heavy mulch, so hopefully, it won’t be so hard to keep them from wilting. I’m also planting asparagus seeds in a few plots in the hope that they will produce in a few years. For now, it’s 2 fewer plots to worry about having to turn and plant. All in all, “garden lite” is going pretty well… the 6 inches of snow that fell on Mother’s Day was a bit of a challenge though!
Sounds like a great garden lite plan! Have you ever tried growing sweet potatoes? Unless you have voles, they’re pretty low key.
The “garden main” is about 3000 sq ft. I don’t think that number includes the strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, etc. It’s really hard for a realtor to understand/appreciate exactly what we’re looking for without seeing the current garden set-up!
Lordy! That sounds more like a small farm than a garden! I’ve been thinking about sweet potatoes, but I don’t know a thing about how to grow them. But hard to kill sounds like a great place to start! Perhaps I’ll go do some research now…
Melissa, did you see this? I think it’s time to take the garden contents up a notch. 😉
That corn really is pretty, though.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2014/05/13/310459918/gardeners-gems-this-years-hottest-edibles-will-wow-the-neighbors?utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=npr&utm_term=nprnews&utm_content=20140513
That corn IS amazing! Matthew grew two varieties of flint corn last year, and he’s always on the look-out for new things to try! Not sure if I should share this link with him or not 😉