Annual Vincas

I didn't like the combination of annual vincas and Queen Sofia Marigolds in the hoophouse border. Since the marigolds were doing well and beginning to spread, I chose to move the vincas out of the border and into a large window box.

I transplanted two of the White Bush Lebanese squash to their own pots.  Hope there is enough growing season to produce squash!

Sowing Seeds for the Fall

Today I sowed peas and beans for fall harvest: Little Marvel Peas and three varieties of green beans, Kentucky Wonder, Tenderette and Earliserve Bush.  All packets were Livingston Seeds purchased from Ace Hardware.

I also thought it would be wise to have six-packs of kale, arugula, swiss chard and lettuce plugs available to plant in the hoophouse raised beds once the beets, spinach and turnips were harvested. The varieties included: Vivian, Arugula Roquette, Swiss Chard Rhubarb and Baby Romaine Lettuce.

Enjoying the Day

The weather is spectacular today, so I did just a few chores before retiring to the gazebo:

1. Weeded onions, asparagus, cabbage, artichokes and sunflowers.
2. Picked off lots of cucumber beetles. 
3. Transplanted cilantro and arugula. 
4. Sowed turnips and beets in hoophouse.
5. Tied up mystery tomatoes in traditional row garden #3.
6. Pinched off damaged grapes and grapeleaves. 

Valuable Real Estate

Another early day and enjoyed every minute of it!

• Pulled the last of the Super Sugar Snap peas.  Even though there were still flowers, they were taking up valuable growing space in the hoophouse.  I sowed turnips in its place. 
• I tidied up after a good rain storm last night.  That usually means washing off splashed dirt on the siding of the house, draining the rain water that had collected under the herb container pots and gazebo canvas, etc. 
• Reused pea supports on Green Arrow Peas seedings both in and out of the hoophouse. 
• Trimmed off yellowing leaves and fading flowers of all nasturtium pots (happens generally after heavy rain). 
• Trimmed front bushes.

Up at Sunrise

I was eager to set foot in the garden; I wrapped up chores before 8:00 am:

• Transplanted six Green Arrow Peas in the raised bed outside the hoophouse.
• Moved eight bags of mulched grass to raised beds outside hoophouse and on various compost piles.
• Mowed lawn.
• Weedwacked edgings.

What a Day!

My HH worked at home yesterday and allowed me to work in the garden the entire morning!! Boy, did I get alot done!

• Transplanted cilantro seedlings to herb container on deck.
• Planted new Basil, Genevese seeds to herb container on deck.
• Tied morning glories to the deck railing.
• Tied morning glory to the baker's rack.
• Placed nasturtium on deck in picnic basket.
• Tidied up herbs, pinching off dried or dead leaves, etc. 
• Thinned and tied up cucumbers to deck railing.
• Transplanted arugula seedlings to large window boxes.
• Harvested radishes and neatened up large window boxes.
• Put in additional staked and tied up container tomatoes.
• Set up nylon nettings (3) for pole beans.
• Tied cucumbers to gazebo trellis.
• Weeded traditional row garden beds #1, #2, and #3.
• Sowed Envy soybeans in traditional row garden bed #3.
• First sighting of morning glory climbing deck.
• First sighting of small yellow squash and zucchini.
• Pinched off yellow leaves on butternut squash, really not many this year.
• Pinched off cucumber beetles, many this year.
• The corn in the center of the bed is approaching four feet tall.
• Lasagna bed in front of back yard fence is not ready for planting.  Need to mound more compostable material this coming week.
• Blueberries and kiwi raspberries still upripened.
• Four snowball white onions have gone to seed.
• Horseradish has finally taken hold, don't think animals will be interested any longer.
• Peas in raised bed #9 have been eaten by critters; will clear bed and plant another crop this coming week.  However, the green bean plants in that bed have managed to set some green beans. 
• Peppers and eggplants have finally taken good hold; are now at least a foot tall with good coloring
• Some of the potatoes show evidence of dying back.
• Tomatoes in the raised beds#1, #6, #11 and #15 are completely disease free, keeping fingers crossed.
• Shallots, Red Picasso, have split anywhere from three to seven bulbs.
• Transplanted the three cloned Principe Borghese tomatoes to a raised bed in back of hoophouse.
• Pulled arugula (went to seed, still delicious) and swiss chard (leaves diseased) in raised bed in back of hoophouse.
• Fennel is bulking up in raised bed in back of hoophouse.
• Transplanted Green Arrow Peas to raised bed in hoophouse.
• Transplanted two Thai Basil from herb container to raised bed in hoophouse.
• Sowed Spinach Bloomsdale in hoophouse raised bed.
• Transplanted one curley kale to raised bed in hoophouse.
• Pulled out arugula in hoophouse raised bed.
• Wound tomatoes around jute in hoophouse.
• Peas, Super Sugar Snap still producing in hoophouse, but tapering off. Should yank plants and reuse that space. 
• Two White Bush Lebanese squash have grown to inch tall in large container.  Pleased since only have one in the traditional row garden #3.
• Remember to plant Cherry Bell radishes, old reliable variety.

Miscellany

New pea seedlings coming along et.al. and tomato clones doing OK.

Finally decided on a home for lone morning glory -- up the baker's rack. This MG has an interesting leaf varigation.

I can taste the corn now, well over a foot by the 4th of July, almost four feet tall for some! 

Creeping sweet potatoes onto the pea stone.

Creeping waltham butternut squash.  
My favorite vegetable, that's what I say about most vegetables!

Peppers are finally adding bulk and good color.

Can't wait for my nylon trellis delivery later this week, ready to train the pole beans upward.

More pole beans needing to be trellised up the stockade fencing. 

Flower Garden Update

Looking up the hill

Looking down the hill

Pansies still going strong

Balloon Flowers

Empress Nasturtiums

Shasta Daisies

Cosmos

Mystery Flower - will cut off small flowers before they seed!

Maybe candy lily??

Impatiens doing well in the upper corner, however the lupines in back are not getting enough sun!!

Catnip overtaking rounded corner 

How I love the color of this wave petunia!! Will repeat this annual next year!!

The potentilla just past peak!

I like the verbena more than I thought I would.  

Chinese Forget-me-nots

Wonderful dahlia's, Enwin's mix. 

This year's potentilla, can't have enough. Will start more next year.  

This year's rudbeckia doing well

The two kiwi plants have met at the top!

Wonderful Curly Parsley

One of the best crops in the gardens is parsley, practically foolproof and a reliable "cut and come again" herb. A summer staple in the refrigerator is a bean salad: lima or buter beans combined with onions, tomatoes, roasted corn niblets and a dressing made with fresh lemons, canola oil and wine vinegar. It's a family favorite.

First Tomato and Last Strawberries

I picked the first tomato of the season, an Independence Day tomato. Not the prettiest, nor the roundest, but I'll take it!  No reason to purchase fresh tomatoes from now through November, a full six months! This year I am going to rate the taste of each tomato variety on a scale of 1 to 10, keep an accurate inventory of the number of tomatoes produced by each variety and determine the average number of tomatoes per plant variety.

Running the "clean palate" test!

I also picked the last of the Jewel Strawberries. How I loved having strawberries available for fresh eating. The harvest totalled over thirty-seven pounds and I guess twenty-five pounds are in the freezer. It will be lovely to pull them out for smoothies and shortcake in the winter.

Postscript #1 - The lettuce that remains in various containers and gardens are bitter even though they haven't bolted.

Basil Pesto

The basil plants were beginning to flower so it was either now or never to harvest leaves for pesto.

I used a recipe by Ina Garten, the Barefoot Contessa: 

1/4 cup walnuts

1/4 cup pignolis ( pine nuts)

3 tablespoons chopped garlic (9 cloves)

5 cups fresh basil leaves, packed

1 teaspoon kosher salt

1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

1 1/2 cups good olive oil

1 cup freshly grated Parmesan

Place the walnuts, pignolis, and garlic in the bowl of a food processor fitted with a steel blade. 

Process for 15 seconds. Add the basil leaves, salt, and pepper. 

With the processor running, slowly pour the olive oil into the bowl through the feed tube and process until the pesto is thoroughly pureed. Add the Parmesan and puree for a minute. 

Use right away or store the pesto in the refrigerator or freezer with a thin film of olive oil on top.

Finishing Touches

I enjoyed being relatively caught up in the gardens before the holiday weekend. The only tasks completed were mowing the lawn, tieing the morning glory to the lamppost and watering the containers in and out of the hoophouse.

We are in store of a week of warm and sunny weather.  I expect to see substantial growth with the summer crops.

One of the Independence Day tomatoes in the oval garden has begun to turn reddish/orange.  Will it be ripe by the 4th of July?

Weed and Feed Part 2

Yesterday I tended to four areas of the garden: the hoophouse, the traditional row gardens, the deck and cement patio planters and the east side front beds. The gardens look nice and tidy.

Early this morning I concentrated on the raised beds, in particular weeding the peas and beans bed. This bed looks very poor; animals have been munching on the seedlings. But some of the beans are now flowering, so not all is lost.

All that remains of the "weed and feed" activities are the flower beds in the front yard.  It's raining heavily right now, so those beds will likely be postponed to tomorrow.

Outdoor activites are so much more preferred in the spring and summer; consequently, cooking currently reads low on my "interest meter."  But the rain moved my activities indoors and I made chicken stock using defrosted chicken thighs (needed to be used today) and fresh thyme and celery from the garden. The stock simmered for four hours and yielded four quarts.  I've missed having homemade stock in my freezer.

The stock ingredients were as follows:

Chicken thighs
Water
Sauteed onions and garlic
Fresh onions
Fresh garlic
Carrots
Celery
Thyme
Peppercorns

Weed and Feed Part 1

Today begins a two-week "weed and feed" schedule (1st and 15th of the month) that will be carried through the rest of the growing season. I will weed, pinch off insects, dead head blooms, thin seedlings, trellis climbing vines, tie tomatoes, eggplants and peppers and harvest crops, as well as apply epsom salt, compost, compost tea and pelletized organic fertilizer where needed.  My goal is to not let the garden look "shabby sheek" as it usually does by the end of July.

The "weed and feed" cart will be trailed behind me; it will be garaged in the hoophouse to be ready at hand!

The miscellaneous chores that I did today included:

• Moved a Principe Borghese tomato container plant to the traditional row garden bed #3.  I buried it three inches deep.  The container itself was struggling to keep up with the watering needs of the tomato so hopefully this will help.  I am experimenting with only one of the two tomatoes of this variety. 
• I cut back the Russet potatoes that were overgrown. This was a suggestion from Ray, a gardening blogger that I follow. 
• I transplanted four thai basil to the hoophouse from the container on the deck. 
• A few more potato beetles were pinched off the potato plants in the container outside the hoophouse. 
• I placed stakes around the Mammoth sunflowers on the east side of the foundation. 
• I cultivated the remaining free bed in the traditional row bed #3. Not sure what will be planted next. 

Postscript #1 - The tomato suckers showed absolutely no sign of wilt!

Sowing Seeds and Tomato Suckers

Remaining drizzle from yesterday's storm kept me in the hoophouse early this morning.  I sowed Long Island Improved Brussels Sprouts, Waltham 29 Broccoli, Arugula Roquette, Cilantro, White Bush Lebanese Squash, Green Arrow Peas and Baby Romaine Lettuce.

The Principe Borghese tomato plants in containers did not look well this weekend and, in fact, I had quarantined them on Sunday. However, after the torrential rain, the leaf roll, in particular, has disappeared and I returned them to their spot near the other container tomatoes. 

I snapped off three suckers from these tomato plants and planted them in a 6-inch pot.  I expect the suckers to wilt over the next few days but, hopefully, they will develop roots to become a clone of their parent plants. My success rate with this method is typically 40 to 50%.  Last year, I ended up with a total of twelve clones and they produced tomatoes in the hoophouse well into November. 

The fennel, collards and parsley in the photos below are doing well in the hoophouse. I had just harvested the parsley a few weeks ago and it's almost time again. 

Plant Labels and Pickled Turnips

The venetian blinds in the guest bedroom were updated; the old ones became good candidates for plant labels. 

Using turnips and beets from the garden, I made three jars of pickled turnips. The recipe is below:

Turnips
Salt
White Vinegar
Beets
Garlic

Boil water and allow to cool.  To each cup of water, add 1 tablespooon of salt.  To each 2 cups of water, add 1 cup of white vinegar.  Wash turnips thoroughly and cut into small pieces and place in jars.  Add a few cloves of garlic if desired and some slices of beets.  Pour into prepared brine.  Cover and allow to set for a couple of weeks.  Refrigerate.

Another Strawberry Harvest

Before another considerable storm passes through tonight, the HH and I picked seven and a half pounds of strawberries.  Monday I will can strawberry jam, no excuses allowed. 

Friday Morning

I enjoyed the quiet of the morning in the garden. I organized seeds in the hoophouse and decided which ones will be sown outdoors and in 3-inch pots. I tidied the shed area and organized the pool equipment and toys.

The Back Yard

What a day!!  Eighty degrees, blue sky, light breeze, ahhhh!

After mowing the lawn and watering the gardens, I puttered in the back yard:

1. Weeded hoophouse carrots
2. Planted Ringmaster onions in the hoophouse raised beds
3. Tied up containers tomatoes in the hoophouse with twine
4. Transplanted Greek Oregano and rosemary into hoophouse raised bed
5. Tied and trimmed bottom leaves of all tomatoes in outdoor beds
6. The basil in the "Max and Luc" pots was thrown away. 
7. The cilantro in the deck containers bolted and were thrown away. 

The Front Yard

This morning I concentrated on the front yard gardens and was able to complete the following tasks:

1. Finished weeding flower garden
2. Deadheaded pansies, oriental poppies, columbines, etc. 
3. Weeded periwinkle border above rock wall
4. Weeded marigolds and morning glories around lamppost
5. Finished weeding alpine strawberry beds
6. Thinned peach tree for the third time and picked up fallen peaches
7. Weeded asparagus bed
8. Weeded brassica bed

Paving the Paths

An objective today was to line the paths in the traditional row garden with grass clippings.  Our dear neighbor saves his grass clippings and fall leaves for us.  I am particularly fond of the clippings, they have so many uses in the garden.  They decompose readily into compost, provide mulch between plants and, of course, line garden paths. Even though I prefer to line paths with straw and wood chips for esthetic reasons, they inevitabley get mixed into the garden soil, a major no, no in my book; they take very long to decompose. I work hard to incorporate only a small amount of clippings and finished or partially finished compost into the beds at the season's end.

I harvested over twelve pounds of strawberries, another big day!

I also thinned the Nantes Carrots in the large container.

The BEFORE

The AFTER

Here's a view of the garden looking west from the traditional row garden:

And to think I wasn't going to plant African Daisies next year! They are such a cheerful flower, and so easy to grow!

The photos below hardly captured the wonderful yellowy-orange glow from overhead thunder clouds. A "real" camera, rather than a cell phone camera, would be fun to experiment with.