How does your garden grow?
Pretty well, thanks. Even if my name’s not Mary. But it’s a nice little garden, and I’m pleased with it.
And there’s extra impetus for recording its progress: My DH and I are planning to stay in this house for one more year, then move to a different state about this time next year. I’d originally thought we’d move slightly earlier in the year, so I wouldn’t be able to have a garden. But, looking out the door and seeing how much stuff I’ve already harvested, I think I might be able to plant a few things next year, and get something out of them before we head off to the next stop on our decade-long series of moves.
But what to plant next spring? My theory is, plant things that I’m harvesting now, or are just finishing up. Peas, lettuce, carrots, rocket, mustard greens. Maybe some other greens like kale. I have the tiniest beans just starting to form; they’re so cute, about half an inch long but recognizable as green beans. I’m not sure if I should try to repeat that next year. The spinach didn’t do a darned thing, so I won’t repeat that in the spring, but I might try again this fall, once the weather cools off a bit. The first round of rocket- a variety called Apollo, from Seeds Savers- bolted as soon as it got too hot, but the second is doing better.
Hot weather crops like tomatoes, peppers, and cucumbers are definitely a no for next year, but they’re coming along nicely. A few tomatoes are starting to form- which reminds me, I need to water them so they get larger- the peppers are flowering, and the cucumbers, which I started late, are still vining. The basil plants are flowering; I need to give them a haircut and make pesto; that’ll teach the uppity buggers to flower before I’m done with them.
I picked a couple of bugs off the experimental potatoes this morning- yes, they’re experimental; what else does one do with potatoes that are just starting to go bad? But not too many other pests so far. Unless you count the masses of pillbugs that I can’t seem to get rid of; they’ve been around ever since I’ve started this adventure, so I don’t even see them as pests anymore, just part of the landscape.
So, on this first day of summer, how does your garden grow?
Mad Genius Club 
6 responses to “Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary…”
freebie black berry plant didn’t survive transplant. Ferocious attack rose got her big blooming phase out of the way earlier and is now in the sporadic blooming phase. Kindly relative with specialized implements gave my ornamental bushes a haircut.
No where near as far as yours! Got some things growing in the greenhouse, but nothing over a couple of inches tall. (But then we were still having frost level temperatures just a couple of weeks ago! Winter was good to us. I kept it very small this year, since we didn’t know if we were going to have to move (still don’t, but hoping it’s a no). Did everything from seed, including the marigolds which come up on their own every year. The blue berry plant was doing pretty good (started it last year) but one of the dog ate most of it and then dug it up out of the ground. White raspberries doing well, no blooms yet. And the wild rose, is blooming now. Smells so good!
It grows!
A few snapdragons overwintered (on the south side) and a lot re-seeded. Coneflowers need to be weeded out except in their patches (and I decided one had to gone, because it was too forward). Million bells and petunias and purslane and others are covering the ground.
Daylilies starting to bloom. Only planted one this year, but they overwintered.
My lithodoria was less fortunate, but I was able to get others. And my Scottish harebells are going gloriously, the two from last year and the new ones this year, among the dwarf morning glories.
The marigolds are running riot, and instead of being the little 4-inch-tall flowers I remembered, they’re choking out the carrots and pepper plants. They’re well over a foot tall.
Of the three pepper plants, all turned out to be victims of a seed switch at the nursery supplier level. Only one has made it to fruiting, but it’s turning out copious quantities of banana peppers instead of the TAMU jalepenos I thought I was getting.
The snow peas, amazingly, are *still* producing.
The peppers got so tall the overtopped the ability of the cage to restrain them, and fell over in a gust front off a thunderstorm, and repeated thunderstorms have driven them to like their newer flatter position. But I’m starting to get cherry tomatoes.
The fennel eaten to the nubs of stalks by swallowtail butterflies is recovering, and I saw two butterflies post-chrysalis-emergence, so I grew a crop successfully!
The dill has bolted. The basil is bolting. The scallions are flourishing. The thai basil that I got two years ago decided to skip a year and come back, self-seeded.
The sage is doing well. The organo is doing far better than it should. The fig plant has grown so much I’m reconsidering keeping it in a pot, as every thunderstorn knocks it over, due to enough leaf mass that it catches too much wind.
The mint was struggling, but I added coffee grounds and plenty of water, and is flourishing again.
We couldn’t survive on it, but it’s more parsley, sage, and oregano than I can cook with, and the mint is happily providing the odd mojito.
We’re getting hit hard by the drought here in Central Indiana. The snow peas and sugar snap peas got established beforehand, so we’ve had some pretty nice crops of them, although I’m only seeing a few new blossoms, so we probably won’t get much more.
OTOH, the beans and the squash are visibly stunted, and I’m not sure how well they’ll be able to yield. And the tomato and pepper plants I started indoors are not doing well at all.
I’m trying to water, but it’s not a substitute for good soaking rains. I’m more worried about the farmers — two days ago, I drove past some fields, and the corn wasn’t even knee-high, while the soybeans were maybe a few inches tall. It could be a very bad year.
There are some sumacs growing down at the intersection to leave the neighborhood. Sumacs change early, and the area is high stress for plants.
But they were turning a week ago. Brilliantly red and yellow before the solstice, even.