Mid-May

(Click on the pictures to enlarge.)

Things are coming along well.  We have had a decent amount of rain, and rain just makes the plants grow better than city water.  Must be the chemicals.  Plus, I've made compost tea and have been giving them that twice a week.  The potatos are especially robust this year.  I looked at last year's crop in the pictures and they never got this big, period.  They were harvested in the first week of June last year and had noticable insect damage to the leaves.  This year, they are a foot taller now than at harvest last year and have basically no noticable insect damage.  The one thought that has gone through my mind is whether all the energy is going to foliage this year and not roots.  We'll see. 

You can see that my garden is very cramped.  I try to get every inch used because I have so little space to work with.  There is no doubt that my tomatos are smaller this year than last, even with starting the seed indoors to get a head start.  I think the main reason is the potatos being in front of them and shading them.  The tomatos are finaly getting to the point that they will get good sun in spite of the potatos, so I will see how long I can go before I harvest the potatos.  I might try planting them behind, to the right, of the tomatos next year.  This may help the tomatos and not hurt the potatos at all.  At worst, it would probably compete with the sugar snap peas.  I'll risk it.  The onions are also crowed, but they get good sun and I'm not too worried about them.  I've already pulled a few and eaten them as green onions and they have been very good.  I will continue to thin them that way and see if I can actually get them to form bulbs this year.  

That is one packed picture.  As you can see, the French Marigolds are doing quite well in front.  By the end of the summer they will cascade over the lumber and spill out over part of the lawn.  They smell great, but that's not the reason I plant them.  The roots emit something that kills grubs and they keep white flys aways from the tomatos and other vegetables.  They also bring in a lot of helpful insects for pollination and butterflys for beauty.  Last year they were in bloom from May til mid November.  That's a hard working flower.

Last years tomato plants were the best I have ever grown.  By mid summer they were seven feet tall.  The one down side to all that growth was my cages were very small and just couldn't support the big plants, especially the heirlooms which seem to get crazy big.  So, this year, we invested in some cages that are much larger and should support a much bigger and fuller plant.  These are about 5.5 feet tall and have supports that go about a foot into the ground.  I hope they do the trick.

There are several of the plants with a good start already.  These will start to ripen in a couple of weeks.

This is the Boston Marrow winter squash that I have trained on some twine.  There is one little fruit on so far.  These guys get big, like 15 to 20 lbs big, so I don't know how many I will let grow.  They are supposed to have great flavor.  I'm looking forward to soup and pie this winter.

Here's a picture of the little guy.  I'll keep it updated to track the growth.  I've never grown this before, so it should be interesting.

This is the Boston Marrow flower.  These are big flowers.  They are probably five inches from the stem to the tip of the blossom and open a good four inches wide.  I might try to stuff and saute some later in the summer.

Here are the sugar snap peas that have started coming on in the past week.  They are very sweet, but don't last long.  We'll enjoy them while they last.

Here are the Draggon Beans.  They are doing well, especially since they are in only partial sun.  They have been blooming for about two weeks now.  This is the first time I've grown this type of bean; it's also the first time I've grown bush beans.  I have planted Purple Pod Green Beans in the past, a climbing bean, and they have done well, but take too much space.  I'm trying this and hope they work out.  The plan is to grow them out all summer and collect the dry beans.  I won't have green beans this year.

This is a close-up of the Draggon Bean blossom.  They are very delicate and have a very soft purple tinge that doesn't show on the picture too well.

The beans are in back and the yellow summer squash is in front.

This is one of two little squash that have set so far.  

These are the same beans to the left with zuchini to the right and the yellow squash in the back.  No zuchini have set yet.

Couldn't resist taking a few close-up shots of the Frech Marigolds.  Love 'em.

Finally, these still don't look like much, but they look way better than they did a few days ago.  After I posted the tomato propagation shots a few days ago they completely wilted and looked like they were dead.  They completely layed over and drooped to the ground.  Within about three days they were starting to look better and now look like they will definately make it.  I did go back and trim some of the leaf sets off-- the ones that had died back.  In the future, I will trim all but two leaf sets and the main branch.  We'll keep you posted on the progress.  Assuming it works, this is a fast easy way to multiply one plant into several.  It will be especially useful in getting mid-season plants in for late tomatos.

Just though I'd end with a couple of shots of the chicken house.  It's worked quite well.  We got three new chickens a couple of weeks ago.  They are still too small to go outside, but in three to four weeks they will join the original three in the coup.