Late June 2012 Garden Overview

Not much has changed.  If you look closely you’ll see that the cucumbers are just starting to grow, the squashes and melons are sprawling across the lawn, the cabbages and carrots are ready to be picked and processed, the garlic is gone, and the sweet potatoes are leafing out nicely.  The strawberries are alive and sending out runners, and I still need to get out there and plant a bunch of fall green beans for my wife.

Rotten Raised Bed

The raised bed that held the garlic bit the dust while I was using a fork to loosen their roots.  This wood is pine, and was only about 4 years old.  Can anyone tell me how long cedar would have lasted?  If you have direct experience with using it, that would be great.

Also, is it safe to use those new recycled composite plastic deck boards to surround a food garden raised bed, or would they leach yuckies into my dirt?  Anyone ever research that?

Biggest Cabbage, Currently

My lens cap is in that picture.

This cabbage was direct-seeded outside around last Halloween.  It survived through our mild winter under the hoops, and I worked around it while I was planting other things in this bed this year.

As you can see, the head is about 5 inches wide and almost ready to harvest.  I believe this is a “January King” variety.

Also, here is one of MANY little unhelpful critters I pulled off of this cabbage:

I hope you can excuse the dirty hands and fingernails.  I was gardening.

Garlic getting pretty tall

My garlic is 18 or 20 inches tall now and seems to be growing great!  I expect to see the scapes show up any day now.  It looks like I need to weed it again.  I should have taken the time to re-cover that ground with grass clippings.  Ah, well.

The Peas haven’t reached the trellis yet

This early spring probably allowed the peas to germinate much faster than normal, but they still have quite a bit of growing to reach the bottom of the trellis that I want them to grow on.  Sunday and Monday will have temperatures as high as 90 F, so that ought to confuse these cold-loving plants.

I need to harvest all these peas by Mid-to-Late May so that I can reuse this space for cucumbers.  For once I believe I’m actually on schedule this year.

Raised bed vegetable garden 2009

 

Two new beds (near the viewer) and four raised to be deeper

I worked in the garden this past Saturday.  I added in two new veggie beds and increased the depth of four of the existing beds.  Wood is expensive.

8 beds plus 4 bales to plant

The ones closest to the photographer here are covered in cardboard in the hope that a week without sunlight will make the sod removal easier this Saturday.

Behind that fence lies a creek...that floods.

My main motivation to raise the vegetable beds to these depths was the creek that runs behind my property.  Last year the creed flooded several times and ruined some of the garden.  I raised the lowest lying bed to a height of 18 inches.  The next one up is now 14 inches high and the one in the foreground is 10 inches high.  I think this is going to help quite a bit.

They are quite deep now.

View from low ground

The dirt will be delivered to the front driveway early Saturday morning, weather allowing.  Actually I’m starting to wonder, because the forecast calls for Thursday and Friday to be raining.

With any luck I’ll have these all filled and tilled and partially planted next week!

I’m not really looking forward to a day of moving dirt again, but it has to be done.

First vegetable of the season

Yes, this radish is still a baby, but I couldn’t resist trying a few so early.  They did just fine with cold weather, even got snowed on a few times…once while still tiny seedlings.  Produced 2 to 3 weeks slower than stated on the packet, but still did very well!

The greens taste just like the radish!

This bunch was actually started in a container before the dirt was delivered.