Harvest May 18

This weekend was very mild but not much was harvested - the first of the Rhubarb was picked as it was getting a bit over crowded, few shoots of brocolini and some of the last asparagus for the year. The bed was not producing as well as I hoped so I don't want to overtax it and will let it grow out a bit. Hope next year will be better. First of the baby strawberries were picked and my hubby enjoyed them for a treat. There are loads of flowers blooming but will have to wait few more weeks for really good harvest (pending no more storms).

At the house our cucurbits are growing nicely, waiting for weather to get above 50 at night to be transplanted. There are several varieties of cucumbers, summer and winter squash, luffa, cantaloupe and watermelons have been seeded. Also running an experiment with hydroponic cucumber - it seems to be very happy there! Growing very fast and very healthy.

Also part of the hydroponic experiment are tomatoes - growing twice as big as in pots; chard - so-so for now but I hope it will pick up, asian greens as usual and whole lot of letuces and even one melon.

And in the last picture you can see an addition to the back yard - chestnut trees were packed in the car, delivered and planted - 4 of them. I do hope at least 1 will make it as so far we haven't had good track record with others like walnuts. And deer tend to strip anything we plant so I hope for 1 out of 4. Otherwise in 10 yrs we'll be swimming in chestnuts.

 

How is your garden doing? Visit Daphne's garden to see other harvests.

Early May around the garden

Few pictures to show how the garden looks mid-May. It's very bare in the beds, but things are slowly starting to grow and bloom. Here's an overhead view from 2nd story window - screen makes it hard to get a clear picture, but you get an idea.

 

Seedlings are getting hardened off on the patio - some early beans in the pot (hopefully groundhog won't find them), and few seeds of corn that I wanted to grow for my hubby as he likes it fresh. This year I'm trying heirloom blue corn and sweet yellow open pollinated variety. 

 

The trays of tomatoes and peppers waiting for warmer nights to get in - I had to buy two trays of peppers (with yellow rims) in addition to my own as germination was very poor and aphids ate half of the ones that did decide to grow. Hope next year will be better. Then you can see few pics inside the garden - grapes waking up, strawberry in bloom, bed of brassica plants, peas that need support. 

This one strawberry is the sole survivor of 25 plants that were planted right before winter - Honeoye variety and it's first time it's in bloom. Let's hope it was worth it. Next to it are our blueberry bushes - 4 yrs old and finally decent blooms on them. I didn't want to trim them and hope they will grow well. Garlic in small garden is doing ok but not as well as last year. Not sure what was different. Some additional cabbages, strawberries and greens are planted in between to use up some of the space. Lonely nectarine tree on the background - it's on 3 year so will strip it this year. 

These are my apple trees - the one in the middle unfortunately was severely striped by an animal (most likely deer) and only has few leaves remaining. I hope it will recover. It's a shame as it was covered in blooms - you can see upclose shot of one of them on top of the tree. I was looking forward to trying it - it's a Ginger Gold variety. 

Then here we have mulberry - on its 3rd year and growing quite nicely. And another picture showing my future favorite - persimmon, also on 3rd year and just starting to open leaves. I do hope next year it will start to produce. Then we have rhubarb and a peach tree both doing very well this spring. 

And of course some pretty flowers - lily of the valley is just opening first flowers and our entry to the house covered with them! Lilacs are full in bloom and all peonies that I planted all over the property and in both gardens are full in buds so hope in a week or two they'll open up! I have bright red, pink and white peonies. 

 

Columbine, red Azeleas and up-close shot of the lilacs - all so pretty. 

 

White Bleeding Heart is just starting to bloom away and Hostas are unfurling their leaves. I planted few zinnias here and there to keep a splash of color in the garden while it's starting up.

The last two pictures are inside the large garden - a salad "mess" that happened when i was planting it and didn't realize that bag was torn - full bed is infested with salad now And my potatoes starting to wake up and grow - I sprinkled some radishes so they can grow while the potatoes taking off, but they took nearly 3 weeks to wake up themselves. Go figure. So here you have it. Wish I had it all nice and clear of weeds but the weeds grow faster and better than the rest of the garden. :)

Harvest May 12

This week we're finally eating our own greens. I propbably picked more asparagus than I should have at one time, but it was so tasty! Some fresh scallions, salad and mustard greens were nice and crispy and made a perfect salad.

And then there was small harvest from the forest - fresh Morels and Ramps. They are so yummy!

Join us at Daphne's to see what others are harvesting this week and share your pictures!

Planting beans

It finally got warm enough outside this week to plant more veggies, and so we planted more peas and first batch of beans in both gardens. I've planted peas in April but germination was very poor and they were really not growing well at all. I hope the new batch will be doing better. The ones I'm looking forward to are Green Arrow, Cascadia and Garden sweet. I also have super-snappy that I usually freeze for winter. if I had more space I'd probably plant ten times as many because I love eating them fresh right there in the garden. I did have to add more soil to the border by the fence where I had peas last year to balance it out - otherwise all that nitrogen that was deposited in soil would have been too much and would inhibit growth.

On another side also by fence we have poll beans like Dragon Tongue and green and red Asparagus varieties. And one I really like is French Gold. And of course several types of bush beans. Last year we lost most of them to rabbits, but I hope this year will be better. We have a long pot with few bush beans already growing, but it's just a few plants to get an early start. I love Velour - purple variety because it's very tasty and is strikingly pretty in the garden, but my hands-down favourite is roc d'or - a yellow wax type. It's almost buttery taste is wonderful in summer and freezes really well.

Now just have to sit back and wait and see what grows well and what doesn't.