UpSo: Garden Updates June 1

Thought I would begin by posting a picture of the first strawberries from our raised containers/boxes. That was several days ago, today I picked a small bowl full!

May is such a busy time for planting, it's hard to know where to start. Everything is planted in the SFG now, except the eggplant. I am letting them get a little bigger before I put them in to begin the battle with flea beetles. I started them early indoors, but the plants are still not very big. I hope to get a least a few eggplants by September!

Here's view of the entire SFG I took this morning between rain showers:



Everything seems to be doing very well, except for the green peppers and the filet beans. The pepper plants seems to be struggling. Some of the leaves have turned yellow and have fallen off. These were greenhouse plants (California Wonder). The bush filet beans did not all come up, so I replanted the missing one this morning.

What we've eaten from the SFG so far: Spinach, lots of lettuce, broccoli, radishes, peas and strawberries. I also have lots of herbs in pots, which are not in the main SFG area -- use some of them everyday!

I've also added more garden pics in my personal album. Check it out:

https://squarefoot.forumotion.com/gallery/Personal-album-of-pattipan-cat_u115.htm

So let's hear from the rest of you Upper Southerners now about your SFG is coming along this first day of June!

I've already pulled all my lettuce except for four Red Sails plants. I'm eating the last of the spinach I pulled last week which was bolting. We still have a few German Giant (Parat) radishes which are still mild even though growing to huge sizes. The arugula is becoming bitter, too. I'll be cutting cabbage by the end of next week and thinking about what to plant in its place.

We had our first new potatoes from the rows for supper last night - they were Yukon Gold, and SO good! (We didn't intend to harvest them, but when DH pulled up a lambsquarter the whole plant came up with it, so he just picked off the tubers and we ate them.)

My peas are blooming - hope they hurry up and set pods before the weather gets any hotter. The watermelons and cucumbers are setting their first blooms, and the pole beans are putting out runners. We have tomatoes with fruits that are nearing full-size. Why does it take them so long to ripen?

The onions suddenly started swelling bulbs this week. My dad always said, "Never let a July rain touch your onions," so harvest will be at the end of this month.

Asparagus harvest is over, strawberries are gone for us, and the cherries are all picked. I also picked our gooseberries this week and made a green gooseberry crostata with crumb topping. Yum!!! In fact, I think I'll post the recipe on the recipe forum.

Now it's pretty much just sit and wait for the summer harvest of beans, cukes, squash, tomatoes, peppers, okra, melons, and eggplants to begin.

I spent Memorial Day weekend putting in the sprinkler system, installing the trellises, thinning and (inevitably!) adding a few more plants. Pictures here. Goes without saying but already, everything is so much bigger, I'm amazed.

We are still eating lettuce, radishes, rapini (just leaves, no flower stems yet), and baby bok choi, along with herbs and strawberries. The bok choi is bolting. The weird part is, my peas haven't even flowered yet! In fact the only plant aside from the bok choi that is showing buds is the tomatillo plant I bought. Everything else is just getting started. The lima pole beans are climbing the trellis already, though the Cherokee pole beans aren't quite that big yet. The squashes, cukes and watermelon are just starting to wake up... and I think I just saw another cuke coming out of the ground. Everything else seems healthy, just small.

What is starting to grow strongly is the amaranth. Need to keep an eye on that; I want to try clipping some leaves when it gets a little bigger.

Still eating the lettuce, radishes, and sugar snap peas.

And the occasional ground cherry (cossack pineapple from SESE). Dang, those things are tasty! I plan to plant more than two ground cherry plants next year!

The green beans and tomato plants suddenly took off this week.

The stunted squares of late & directly sown lettuce are still stunted, except for a single cos... gotta figure out what to throw in those squares. The local groceries are now selling potted veggie plants on discount... might be candidates for transplanting.

I finally got all 25 of my planned boxes going. Yes, this is my first year. When I first started, I didn't know that was going to be a lot.

I was worried that the green beans would be a stunted phenotype, as they are very picky about containers. As it turns out, many are normal and some are stunted. I may end up having to replant the stunted ones to see what I get.

You can see it all here:
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=39485951&l=78e96fb1b2&id=34320678

Also, kind of cool, you can see a satellite photo on Google of when I had it halfway done (I hope this works):

View Larger Map

[quote="Megan"] The weird part is, my peas haven't even flowered yet!
quote]
Megan, my peas were planted about the same time as usual this year, in early April, but they were SO late in flowering, too. In fact, they are just now setting on peas, and I've already picked my first ripe tomatoes and cucumbers before I've picked a single pea.

We planted Lincoln peas in the ground in beds, and two weeks later we planted an entire 1' x 8' box of them in Mel's Mix. Although the ones in the ground grew larger and faster, the ones in the Mel's Mix set peas first, and are now completely caught up with the earlier-planting. (I think the Mel's Mix planting got more sun - one of our boxes shaded the first planting a bit.)

It's a strange, strange year.

Mine are Lincoln peas, too. They are only now starting to get "grabby". I finally set a cage around my (also tiny) cukes and went out an hour later and the peas had found it already. No sign of buds.

Too late to edit my last post, drat. But here are my poor peas, plus other pictures taken this morning.







Lettuce still going strong in the foreground. So small you can barely see them, but there are tomatoes (and borage & nasturtium) in front of the trellis and peppers in back of it.


Herbs, strawberries, and my hydrangea.


Zucchino Rampicante, just started on the trellis.


Christmas Pole Limas


Kennebec potatoes... hopefully to get another riser today.


Cherokee Trail of Tears pole beans


Bee / Butterfly garden


Three purple tomatillos, one Black Cherry tomato, plus borage and a nasturtium.