Abundant Harvest, and it's only June!

Today I harvested:

-kohlrabi - outdoors

-beet - greenhouse

-lettuce - it finally bolted - greenhouse

-carrots - finger-sized, I was really just thinning the row - greenhouse

-one volunteer cilantro - greenhouse

-peas - I harvested these yesterday - outdoors

Other things I could harvest if I wanted to:

-basil

-garlic

-green onions

I weeded the garden and greenhouse today. The weeds had finally had a growth spurt. But so did everything else. It's grey and cool today. I'd like more warm weather after the rain we've had so everything will grow.

Lillies and bachelor buttons.

Peas.

Garlic.

Garlic.

Not too many pictures of the garlic we've harvested so far. We gave some away and ate some. It was hot (spicy) and flavorful.

This is one of the blue flowers I planted a couple of weeks ago. I'm excited to see blossoms.

The cabbages have small heads. The past two years the cabbages have been a big focus in the garden. This year, they were more of an after thought. I put in some Earliana cabbages because they were my favorite last year for two reasons: they came early and they were sweet and mild in flavor.

Suprise! Ginger. I planted a ginger root from my kitchen two months ago. I thought it had died because it never sprouted. When I went out the to the greenhouse yesterday there was this 4 inch ginger plant. I love the suprises of gardening.

Okra blossoms. I have a few okras in the greenhouse. Suprisingly, something ignored the lettuce and carrots and ate many of the okra seedlings. But not all. These are well ahead of where my outdoors okra was last year.

I'm happy my greenhouse tomatoes have tomatoes on them. I wasn't sure if there would be pollination problems. One of three plants (they're all different varieties) has small tomatoes. Interestingly, the outdoors tomatoes are bigger and have more tomatoes on them.

I thinned the carrots in the greenhouse. The carrots in this picture are finger-sized. I always feel so guilty thinning plants. But I was suprised at how big the carrots are. Now, hopefully, the remaining carrots will have more of an opportunity to grow big.

First Garlics!

Pictures to follow : )

Hardening Off Worked?

It occurred to me yesterday that my transplanted seedlings are doing a lot better this year than last year. Last year, I attributed the poor growth to weather, and this year I have been attributing it to good weather. This spring has been unseasonally warm and generally a little dry.

BUT, I also hardened my seedlings off this year. I wonder how much of an impact that had.

Warmth

Today was warm and sunny. Until I got done with work. Now we're expecting tornadoes.

Onion.

For the record...

I don't like slugs or earwigs. They are gross. Particularly when they are on the vegetables that you want to eat.

I found my camera

The state of the garden. Monday, June 14th. For scale, the tall onions come to my mid-sternum when I stand next to them.

Peas. I have been grazing on these for a couple of weeks.

Lily about to erupt. From the side, it is dark red and four inches long.

Hot thai peppers.

Tomatoes. One of the plants has small, just bigger than pea-sized, tomatoes on it.

Mini-cabbage. This is the Earliana cabbage. We loved them last year for their early cabbages and sweet flavor.

Garlic scape.

I got some blue flowers at Linders today. The blue has been so pretty in the rain. These are the tags from the pots.

Update 7/5/10.

Platycodon grandiflora, "Sentimental blue".

It's lavender, but pretty.

These are the actual plants.

The greenhouse looks so pretty. Somebody went in and worked the neglected plots and put down mulch in the path.

Turnip in greenhouse.

Turnip in kitchen. Yum.

Pretty purple turnips.

But, summer just arrived!

I got my fall catalog from Territorial last week. Somehow it seems OK when the spring catalogs come in the middle of winter. But the winter catalog coming at the beginning of summer seems so wrong! It's a good catalog for fall and winter seeds and garlic. It doesn't have many flower bulbs. Many of the fall crops can be planted as early as mid-June. And most things can be planted in July.

It's Raining

We've got rain now. The forecast says rain off and on for the next week! My garden will be so happy.

Today, I went out and planted more morning glories. The morning glories that I planted before did not germinate, with the exception of one spunky seed. I think I didn't water them enough because I was out of town. So I'm hoping that, with the predicted rain, this batch will happily germinate in the moist soil. I planted mostly the traditional blue morning glories, some (old) seeds for red morning glories and the three remaining seeds for the purple, white-edged morning glories. I hope I get some of the purple ones. They're awfully pretty on the seed packet and I've never seen them before.

As I write this, I am eating pak choi that I picked this morning. One of the plants had begun to bolt so I harvested two and stir fried them with sesame oil, garlic, ginger, and green onions (also from the garden). The dual purpose was to remove some of the shade over one of the artichokes. The artichoke was starting to get crowded out by a kohlrabi, two snapdragons, and the pak choi plants.

It is so pleasant in the greenhouse in the rain. I am tempted to bring a book out there to read. I just watered today. It looks like something ate the leaves off of my okra seedlings. There are just sad little stems sticking out of the ground. But what would eat okra seedling leaves and leave the lettuce alone.

The tomatoes are blooming now. The peppers have blooms and small peppers. The cabbages have small heads. The blue bachelor buttons and the blue, just bigger than a golf ball, allium flowers look especially pretty in the rain.

I'll find my camera soon. We took it out of town when we were gone and I haven't been able to find it yet. Then we'll have pictures.

Come on, rain

We were out of town this weekend (again). The weather report promised rain, but when I finally got out to the garden this evening, it was dry. There was a little dampness deep in the soil, but not the kind of dampness I'd expect if we'd had a good soaking rain. Only one morning glory germinated. I thought they were supposed to be weeds. Well, I'll soak some more sometime this week. I have no plans for going out of town in the near future, so maybe they'll get the water they need to germinate. I'd start them inside, but the place I'm planting them overlies some concrete and I'm not sure if I'd be able to bury the peat pots fully.

Last week, we enjoyed turnips (mashed with cream, butter, and caraway seeds), basil, lettuce, green onions, and the first of the peas. There is more lettuce, an unlimited supply of onions, and more peas outside waiting to be harvested now.

In the greenhouse, the tomatoes are slowly growing. The beets look good and are growing well. The carrots are getting a little fuller in the leaves. And the okra seeds that I planted last week have germinated.

Outside, the tomatoes have already put forth flowers. The peppers look a little shell-shocked from going outside and getting nibbled on by local pests. The artichokes looked pretty sickly at first, but I think they're settling in, especially the one that did not experience vernalization. The vernalized one hasn't done much yet. I'm not sure they're going to have the time to grow before it gets cold, but we'll see.

The main thing my garden needs now is water. The weather is predicting rain every other day this week with temps ranging from 50s-80s F. I've learned to not trust the Minnesota weather report. If the plants need water, just water them, don't rely on the weatherman to be right!