Happenings in the Garden

I haven't really written about the garden since last Thursday, but things have gotten done. Lots of things that I probably won't even remember. So a short list. My handyman was in doing some work. He gets called in when I'm too busy or too lazy to do things. I had a huge list. Too bad I don't have an EG around to do these for me. But Mike is great. He even put in my pipe supports for my fig trees. Sadly no photos, but it is just a pipe 8" above the soil. I ordered the figs, but because of some travel I have they won't get delivered for a week or two.

View of the pea bed

One of our bare root peach trees never leafed out, so a replacement was sent. I put it in the basement for the heat wave of last week, but this weekend hubby and I planted it once it cooled off. I also did a lot of landscaping weeding and some mulching.

More of the pea bed

I've been busy training the few beans that have started to run up the bean strings. The tomatoes have been pushed back into their cages. They will all get out of control in the end, but for now I'm trying to preserve the small path I have. Today I took Allie around and showed her what to do when I'm away. She is college student living this summer with my townhouse mates. She is studying botany and I think would love to have my garden. So for a while she will.

On Monday I tested the lettuce. It had gotten horribly bitter. So I pulled about four pounds of lettuce out of the bed and tossed it on the compost pile. It was so sad. But our wild weather swings and high temps were just too much for it. I had some more summer lettuce varieties to go into their spots.

Newly planted on the left

But I was worried. The lettuce has the hottest spot in the garden. It is surrounded by brick path on three sides and even the sides of the beds are made of bricks. They really hold the heat of the day. So I covered the edges with burlap and figured when it gets hot, I can soak the burlap and get some evaporation cooling going on. I can only hope it works. But it can't be worse than the uncovered bricks.

I had a few extra lettuce plants so planted them in one of the three sisters beds. That bed gets the most shade of any of the beds in the garden. I figure the squash there won't grow all that well anyway, unless it can get through the corn to the other side. So lettuce ought to love it.

And speaking of lettuce. I have saved two lettuces to go to seed. Little Gem and Paris Island. The Little Gem is already starting to bolt. I don't think the Paris Island is long behind it.

In strawberry news, the alpine strawberries have been planted out. Some of them are still tiny, but I hope they will grow. They are planted in an arc in front of the house. Yeah I know no photos. I ought to take more photos of things, but I don't always. The smallest of the plants are at the ends so if they don't make it, it won't mess up the pattern.

The regular strawberries are starting to send out runners. I'm going to fill the bed in with them. I'll cut off any extra ones after I've got what I need.

After I planted the last of the lettuce I celebrated my lack of seedlings. Then I promptly went upstairs to the nursery and started my third wave of fast maturing brassicas and my slow maturing fall brassicas. And I planted some more of that green monster - Michihili Chinese cabbage.. It is hard to deal with coming out of the garden due to its size, but it tastes so good.

And for Ribbit. I've taken some aerials of the garden. I'll post them sometime when I'm gone.