Harvest Monday 6 June 2016

I have been out of touch for the past week while we drove to St. Louis to attend my niece's wedding, which was inconveniently scheduled for Memorial Day weekend. That is prime planting season around here and I had to leave my tomato and pepper plants in the care of my son, who did an excellent job keeping the thirsty plants hydrated. Unfortunately the plants grew so tall that half had their growing tips singed off by the heat of the grow lamps. There are suckers showing on most so I am counting on them recovering.

On my first trip to the garden in a week, the garden looked fine but definitely needed some weeding and watering. I found the spinach and chard ready to harvest, my first harvest this year. The spade shaped, lighter green leaves are Tyee, while the darker green, round leaves are Escalade spinach. The container lettuces on the deck are ready and are harvested as needed, so I did not photograph them.




















The garlic is still looking good and I can see a few scapes starting to form on the larger ones, so it will be scape season soon.



The onions are definitely doing well. I planted them late, several weeks after I received them, as they were beginning to break dormancy. The result seems to be a better start than last year, when they were planted earlier while still dormant. This year the onion plants from Dixondale were uniformly larger than last year's plants and I am quite pleased with the purchase. A lot simpler than starting from seed.



The Takrima leeks that I did I grow from seed look established and are starting to grow. The shallots did not do well at all and seem to have disappeared. No shallots this year.



The cabbages are doing well despite the flea beetles. At the top is Golden Acre, a traditional, open-pollinated cabbage that can be grown in one square foot of space. At the bottom are the Minuet Napa cabbages, showing more flea beetle damage because they do not have the waxy leaf surface that tends to discourage the beetles.



The kohlrabi were only slightly affected by flea beetles and are starting to size up. This is Azur Star.



This bed contains some of the greens. The rightmost column is Webb's Wonderful crisphead, and I am pleased with how they look. Maybe I will harvest my first head lettuce this year. Next is a column of Winter Density Romaine. The leftmost column has escarole at the bottom and endives at the top.

I spent Saturday in the garden and got some weeding done. I put in the Ashley cucumber plants and half of the tomatoes and peppers. I also seeded the bush and pole beans. So the raised bed garden is essentially complete for now. Next I have to start prepping the other plot I garden to receive the rest of the peppers and tomatoes and seed the summer squash. That plot already has the kale and broccoli plants and they did fine in my absence. Just minor flea beetle damage and so far no cabbage caterpillars.

That is what happened in my garden last week. To see what other gardeners around the world are doing, visit Dave at Our Happy Acres, our host for Harvest Monday.