Kitchen garden status

Our kitchen garden is rather limited and still in need of some repair, especially in the small fruit category.  It's cool, wet weather for the end of April and early May.  It was hotter a month ago, but some things should not be rushed. Lettuce and salad greens abound; they love the cool, wet weather, and if salad comes along before May, then the garden is early. A light row cover not only keeps the herbivores at bay, it really does speed up their growth.  TPP has been watching people buying tomato, pepper, eggplant plants, but it still isn't time. These plants don't like cool and wet, and as long as the night time temps are in the 40s and low 50s they just don't grow, so early planting will not get you earlier tomatoes unless each plant has its own personal hot house. Same thing goes for squashes, cucumbers, and melons. These are warm weather plants, so wait. This is just about our frost-free date, the day beyond which the chances of a frost or freeze are just about nil. The above mentioned plants are very tender, any frost will do them in, while the garden greens and cole crops are pretty tough. The frost free date is normally when the weather warms up.  The longer days and warmer weather will encourage your nightshades and cucurbits, while doing in your salad greens, which begin to bolt and get bitter. It means your BLT is pretty unnatural. Lettuce and tomatoes are virtually never in your garden together, let alone the bacon. So now is preparation time, but not planting time for the warm weather plants. In a way it's let TPP get some chores done in other areas, like pulling young honeysuckle bushes and other woody weeds (not to mention loosestrife) in shady areas. You sometimes don't realize how many there are until you start pulling. A lot of elderberry too, but no idea where those seeds are coming from (yes, birds), but where are the fruiting plants? Broccoli and peas are growing, so time to get everything else ready. 
  

Kitchen Garden Update

After 3 weeks of neglect, although a good neighbor did water once or twice, the kitchen garden has survived a hot, dry July and early August fairly well and this may be attributed to the paper and straw mulch. The plants look pretty good, especially the tomatoes, however most of the near ripe fruit is on the ground half eaten. This would suggest we have a free-loading possum or raccoon hanging around. Damn. Fortunately the golden cherry tomatoes are far enough up on a tall vine (indeterminate plant you know) so they are generally out of reach. For some reason the zucchini have been slow to grow so many are in still in a juvenile mostly male stage, but are showing signs of kicking into gear. Asian varieties of eggplant are doing pretty well except the flea beetles have really laced the leaves. Peppers haven't done much yet, but a couple of plants are keeping things from being a complete failure. If the weather breaks a bit, and some rain appears, some beans, snap peas, and salad greens will be planted for fall crops. Basil and parsley have grown well, and were generously used in a Thai salad for din-dins tonight. Cucumbers have been very successful so far having climbed to about 8 feet and seem in pretty good shape. Hope the beetles hold off for a bit and don't infect them with wilt. Notice that nothing was said about vegetable because most of the summer crops are fruits. So that's the way it is for us small time farmers. Maybe the season of tomatoes and zucchini will happen yet.

Garden catch-up

A busy May schedule, cold wet weather, poor timing (really cold & wet on weekends) have combined to put the kitchen garden way behind. Some attempt will be made today to catch things up and get the garden going. Of course, some people would rather have screens put in their windows than plant tomatoes showing terrible priorities, but the screens are needed now and tomatoes are going to be 2 months away no matter what. Cold wet weather also did in the apple and pear pollination. Add that to the destruction of the raspberry canes by bunnies, and the fruit season is off to a poor start, the fate of farmers everywhere.