May in New England

It always shocks me when something I plant actually sprouts.

I noticed my Marvel bush peas have sprouted.



These are the Marvel peas above in their 3 squares.



above: The greens and Romaine are going well in the A-frame. The center section I'm reserving for 3 or 4 eggplants. If we get a colder than 60* nite after they are transplanted, I can close it up to keep them warmer.

My tomatoes need a boost, so I planted them temporarily into one of the waiting beds and put cloches (plastic water jugs) over them, hopefully they get a jump start from the heat of the sun and MM.

In other garden news, stuff is growing...



from back to front, peas, spinach, red beets, gold beets


Peas, shallots and radish


Breakfast radish, soon to be a tasty addition to my Sunday breakfast!


A lovely breakfast bouquet and my first harvest

First pea bloom, YES!

Great looking gardens! I will have to try those breakfast radishes. Thanks for the great pictures! Enjoy

@camprn......Its sure looking great. I planted some of the French Breakfast rads, too, but later so they aren't ready yet. I'm eager to taste them and yours look good enough to pluck right thru the screen.

Thanks QB! I like them more than other radish because they are mild, I planted more last week in between the brassicas and will likely try to keep them coming all summer long.

Wow camprn - Are you sure it's only 5/20?

I'm thinking you're putting Miracle Gro in your soil... Didn't you plant peas the same time I did? Sure looks beautiful.

Wow! Hi, Everybody! A whole forum with NE gardeners...how great is that?!?! You are all so organized! I hope I'm like that when I grow up.

Meanwhile, I'm new to SFG, and veggie gardening taboot. I planted seeds out too early, they didn't do anything, so I planted over them. I also didn't get my grids in early enough. Now everything is everywhere and I'm not sure what I"m supposed to eat and what's a weed or whatever. And lots of things are MIA. Planted my squash seedlings out a couple of weeks ago. Out of 3 zucchini and 2 acorn, I now have 1 zucchini. Apparently the slugs like squash more than I do. Any helpful hints there would be most welcome!

I've been eating lettuce and kale for a couple of weeks now and I'm into my 3rd batch of radishes already, and my peas just had one bloom today. Even tho I planted a later 2nd row of peas, they all seem the same size to me. Hard to tell any diff. Last weekend I also planted a 2nd batch of beets, carrots, leaf lettuce and cucs (the first cucs look like they are on deaths doorstep). Planted out my tomatoes but they are from 3 packs from Agway. I didn't think of starting tomatoes way back when. OH, I ate my first 2 strawberries today!!! Sun warmed! I've never had that before...truly fruit of the gods!

Anyway, thanks for letting me blah blah bhah...I'm going to read the previous pages now and see what you guys did earlier.

Hugz,
CC

Camp those Breakfast radish look awesome!!!!.....congrats!....your garden looks great!

Quilt love the pic of your garden everything looks great!!

never like radishes until we planted us some Breakfast ones.....yummy!!!

hugs

rose

CC Glad you found your region on the forum! Loved your pics in the other threads!

GG

NHGardener wrote:Wow camprn - Are you sure it's only 5/20?

I'm thinking you're putting Miracle Gro in your soil... Didn't you plant peas the same time I did? Sure looks beautiful.

hmm.... I think we did plant at the same time... I think it's all in the compost... and weather. I sowed my squash and some watermelons in the house today... I am going to try to put them in a bit later and hopefully avoid the dreaded squash vine borer... well at least one life cycle any way...

Aw thanks, GG. Are your iris' really blooming already? Mine are still buds.

CapeCoddess wrote:Aw thanks, GG. Are your iris' really blooming already? Mine are still buds.

My avatar is my first blooming iris of the year. The rest of the walkway is now in full bloom - have not uploaded the photos yet. Maybe tomorrow!

GG

@Cape Coddess....Welcome to the forum. Its always nice to see another SFGer. You're a bit warmer sooner than me, but I'm sure spring is finally here for both of us. Keep enjoying the fruits of your labor. Mmmmmm a strawberry. Mine are just starting to form on a few plants.



My strawberry patch in front is now covered, half with row cover and half with leftover bird netting from the cherry tree. I've seen loads of grasshoppers among the plants. I'm thinking the netting won't save them from hoppers so maybe I'll cover the whole thing with row cover instead.

Holy crow, Quiltbea...look at that GARDEN!!! And all those strawberries! Magnificent! How many years have you been doing this? Do you sell you produce, or have a large family?

I have 2 strawberry plants...

What's your remedy for slugs on the squash? I just put out a cntr of 1/4 t yeast, 1 t sugar & 1 C water. I read that recipe on the internet and so far all I've trapped are ants...

Just planted my cucumbers (4 squares), and several sunflowers on the inside edges of the garden fencing. (Anywhere else and they're liable to get mowed.)

Also planted yellow squash & zucchini in a vacant rock garden. I didn't do much to the soil (really nothing) but I see several earthworms in there and it hasn't been planted with anything for a few years, so maybe it's "strong". We'll see what happens. There's also a rogue tiger lily in there I see, and one volunteer onion I snatched out of my compost pile. Also planted a few sunflowers right in the middle. It's the rock garden of misfit plants.

Now I just need to pick up tomato, pepper, and eggplant transplants and I'll be done, except for the 2 new boxes I'm planning, but those aren't emergencies, I can live without them if I have to.

And NEXT year I'm getting my indoor grow setting organized, and will get broccoli out in time. Plus garlic in the fall.

@CCGoddess.....I started my beds 2009 so this is my 4th year. I cover most things with light-weight row cover these days and don't have insect problems, or not a lot anyway. I stick toothpicks around every transplant so the cutworms don't get 'em. Works for me. And when heat comes, I feel along my tomato branches for those big, soft-bodied hornworms that can devastate a whole plant in only a few days. Ugh. I was a little late getting the netting on this year and the birds have already pretty much taken my blueberry harvest for this year. I have only 5 young bushes along the tree line.

I re-covered my s'berry beds this morning, all over, with the row cover so those pesky grasshoppers will leave them alone. Its a long berm (raised bed without any lumber around them) the width of the garden so its approx 16 ft long x 3' wide.

I also lease 4 rows in our community garden. My family is a son, dau-in-law, teenaged grson and grdau and myself (total of 5). Any leftovers go to family that live nearby. And the Food Pantry. None is wasted, believe me. We even have pumpkins for Halloween decorations but I grow the big things at the comm garden plot.

And I love every minute of it as will you. Every year is more fun that the last, trying new varieties, learning new recipes, trying new crops. Enjoy. Its a blast and keeps this 70-yr old body going every day.



The beginning in April 2009.

Wow! Look how shiny new those boxes look. And 9 is a lot to start with! Must've been a big project to put those together and fill them!

I was a lucky girl. While I was away for a 3-day quilt retreat in NH, my son and grandson removed the sod with a rented sod cutter and put together the boxes. They pretty much filled them all up, I just topped them off and added the grids and the plants. Lucky me.

I can't expand in this area further, so I put plants in pots now, like most of the herbs, all the determinate tomatoes, some peppers and this year I'll try some eggplants in pots.

Luck, indeed!

I have a question about potatoes which I should know but my ADHD brain tries to juggle too many things.

I planted the potatoes, they're coming up. But I have them in a single layer box. Do I need to make it a 2-layer tower for potatoes? I know you get more yield that way, but didn't know if it was a necessity. I'm hoping to do it anyway, getting to Lowes today and having them make 2 one-foot cuts in an 8' plank (they charge you now after 2 cuts I believe), but just in case...

(Oh, and loving this rain...)

@NHGardener.....I know that they have to keep getting buried deeper as they grow so the taters can grow under the soil so I'm thinking you need that added layer. I've never grown any in boxes before so I'm not up on the methods. I'm sure someone else can add their pennies worth of wisdom.

NHGardener, From the other threads on the subject, it looks like it's variety based. I can't find the thread, but it said that there are determinate and indeterminate varieties. I believe the red northerns I chose are indeterminate (not sure) I know fingerlings were mentioned as indeterminate or those plants would grow new potatoes around the stem as long as you kept piling the MM on. A determinate variet was the yukon gold. It was said that it only grows spuds in the bottom area.

Oh. Well I have yukons and fingerlings, not sure which are planted where, so guess some will suffer and some will be in their glory. Ha.

After 2 days of drizzle, this morning (in the drizzle) I planted more radishes, bush beans, romaine, swiss chard, carrots, leaf lettuce, kale & spinach. It was a dumb idea as the seeds stuck to my fingers and the packets got damp and wouldn't open properly and some tore.

Then the new seeds soaked in the their new homes for about 5 hours and now the sun is out!

Was it too late to plant some of these? None of the packets say anything about being for warm weather. We may get into the 70's this weekend. What is considered warm weather ???

It's all good!