June 30, 2011 - The Garden at the End of June (part 1 of 2)

Lots of pictures again, so I'm going to break this post into two parts.


The Kennel Garden


The Fortex beans are climbing up the kennel garden fencing, and beginning to blossom. A second planting of carrots are growing in front, after the first planting was leveled by slugs. A few shallots are begging to be dug from the edge of the bed.


One pole bean plant has gone over the top of the 6' fence.

Pickling cucumbers had to be replanted from new seeds after the first planting failed to germinate. I have three pots in various places along the fence.

Slicing cucumbers fared a bit better, although I lost the first two seedlings. This is the only pot of slicing cucumbers in the garden this year.

The Heavenly Blue morning glories are finally beginning to climb the fencing. I do hope they bloom this year after getting such a late start. There's a yellow crookneck squash behind the bench, which will eventually hide all the garden hoses in that corner.....if it ever gets large enough. It had to be replanted too, and is now the same size as the pickling cucumbers.

Nasturtiums and lobelia give some color to the kennel garden.

The East Garden

The east garden.

Bed # 1 (no photo): The pea vines have been pulled, and bush beans have been planted. However, for some reason I cannot get beans to grow here. They come up as leafless little stubs and disappear. I'm not seeing any slug slime, and the soil is nice and warm now, so this has me stumped. I'm going to try one more planting, with Sluggo sprinkled around and mesh over the top (in case it's birds).

Bed #2 - There is slug damage on the cabbages in this bed, so they may have wandered over to the newly emerging beans next door. The broccoli in this bed isn't giving enough side sprouts to bother with, so I'll be pulling it out this week. The storage type onions haven't bulbed up well either, they might get pulled and frozen for later use. That would clear up half the bed for planting a fall crop of something.


Bed #3 is the Walla Walla Sweet onion bed. Quite a few have already flopped over and been harvested, I expect the rest of them to flop by this weekend. If I can find some seed potatoes or organic potatoes from the store, I'll put them here. If not, this bed will probably be planted with fall lettuce, a final planting of carrots and more bush beans. The tomato plant in the foreground is a volunteer, probably a Minigold, and is covered with blossoms.

Bed #4 is giving us delicious baby carrots. Of the four varieties planted here, I'd say the Ingot Hybrid are performing the best and the Tendersweet the worst. Both Red Cored Chantenay and Nantes are somewhere in the middle on production. The basil in this bed isn't growing as well as in the other bed and pots. We won't even discuss the puny peppers. In years past, my peppers have been knee high, bushy and loaded with fruit and/or blossoms by now. I'm not holding out any hope for this year's crop.

Bed #5: The French Gourmet Green bush beans in this bed are the highlights of the entire east garden. I'll probably be picking them for tomorrow's dinner. The basil in this bed was just picked, and gave me a big basket full that has been banded and hung to dry. More peppers, puny and sickly, but there is actually one bell pepper for four plants. Yes, they've been fed compost tea and fish emulsion, but still no decent growth. I might buy a four pack or two before it's too late to get them planted.

The beans in bed # 5 should be ready to pick for tomorrow's dinner.

Bed #6 has the Rutgers tomatoes (3). They have just a few blossoms, and no sign of fruiting yet. In fact, the blossoms have been dropping from all three plants. There are a few carrots (spotty germination), and huge green onions that really need to be pulled and eaten....we tend to eat the sweet onions instead. These bush beans look good, and are beginning to blossom.

Bed #7 was recently divided into two beds. I'm finding, as I age, the 4' beds are harder for me to reach to the center. The new narrow bed on the right is filled with tiny carrot seedlings. These are from a new packet of seeds, as I think my older seed is losing viability. It only took about a week after Annie ripped the netting over the beets and chard for it to become full of leaf miners. Between that and the slugs, I'm ready to rip out the chard and go to plan 2 for the fall planting. There are more carrots, beets and onions emerging to the left of the beet row. We had roasted baby beets this week, and they were so sweet and delicious, I wished I had planted more....well, now I have. If the leaf miners want the tops, so be it. I'll be happy with the bottoms.


The Walla Walla Sweet onions that were pulled from bed #3 are hanging in the shed to dry, along with the basil that was picked yesterday. I can keep the doors and windows open for ventilation.

The top pulled right off of this one, so it came straight into the kitchen. At 9 ounces, it was one of the larger ones. That's quite a bit smaller than the ones I grew last year.