Yesterday it was raining on and off and I figured I'd been out in the garden enough so I wrote yesterday's blog post. Well somehow I got outside again. OK I know how it happened. I knew the day before I needed to pick the broccoli, but I had forgotten. So out I went. As I was walking by I noticed this.
The first cucumber of the year. So yesterday had the first cucumber and the first tomato. Finally my cucumbers are setting and sizing up. It took them forever. I hope I'm inundated in a week. Maybe.
Then for some reason I decided to check on the front yard and saw this. The first strawberry on my Seascape everbearing strawberries was ripening up.
I think I'll pick it tomorrow. But since I was starting to get ripe strawberries I had to put on some protection for it. I covered the row with bird netting. It isn't firmly attached, but I hope it is enough to keep the pests away.
Back in the back yard I decided I had to deal with the compost pile finally. It was getting a bit out of control after taking the favas down earlier in the week. I keep the compost behind the reed fencing. It is a pallet compost and has four compartments. The working compost didn't have a pallet in front of it since I'm still missing one. So I moved the pallet from one of the leaf compartments. I could pile most of the leaves in that section into the other leaf compartment. So we haven't quite gone through half the leaves I collected last fall, but we are getting there. The interesting thing is the leaf pile itself is warm. Not hot like a real compost pile, but it is breaking down quickly enough to generate some heat.
Then today I finally got around to finishing the tomatoes. The bottom leaves have all been removed. It was way too windy to spray (with Serenade) and way too hot to be covered head to foot and wear a mask so I'll do that tomorrow morning. I wonder how many times I've said that so far this week. It is always hard to find the perfect time to spray. But I'll have to whether it is windy or not tomorrow. The bacterial spot on the peppers is picking up again. They really need to be sprayed once a week and not once every two weeks.
I had one more chore that I did today and that was tying up my melons. I put them in slings of netting. I hope it works. I didn't have any pantyhose like EG uses, but I have lots of netting and string.
Cukes already! And a tomato. Enjoy!
ReplyDeleteWell summer has DEFINATELY arrived now-congrats on the cucumber.
ReplyDeleteHave you ever tried a salad made with tomatoes, cukes, onion, and an oil/vinegar dressing? Divine-and a great way to use up cukes when the bounty becomes a tad "much".
Cukes already! Totally jealous!
ReplyDeleteYour seascape strawberries look much healthier than mine. How far apart did you plant them? Mine never developed many leaves at all! So disappointing. I have to remember to cover them with netting as the chipmunks are eating the unripe berries.
ReplyDeleteThat Seascape looks familiar!
ReplyDeleteAs always, you seem a model of garden efficiency and grace. Lovely harvests.
Your garden is so beautiful Daphne! So pretty to look at.
ReplyDeleteSo, are you getting a higher yield out of this garden than at your old house?
ReplyDeleteAli, finally. I got cukes a couple weeks earlier last year. But the heat last year was so much higher. And I had an earlier variety. All my Diamants died in the cold snap in May so these replaced them.
ReplyDeleteSue, Oh yes. I often add some Jarlsburg too. Sometimes I just have cukes and onions for a salad. I love cucumber salads.
Vegetable Garden Cook, :>
Thomas, I try to plant them about a foot apart. I do use runners to fill the bed in so sometimes they don't get quite that much. But mostly the runners are about a foot long. I was shocked nothing was eating my berries yet. We don't have chipmunks here (thank goodness). We have way too many cats in this neighborhood for that. The chipmunks in my last garden were my nemesis.
Stefaneener, thanks
Melissa, thanks
Ribbit, yes this garden produces a better yeilds per square foot than my last one. And it is a lot bigger too.
So jealous of the cucumbers! Our plants are still fairly small (growing though!). I probably will only get cukes in late August and only for a few weeks before the season is done. I guess something as opposed to nothing is still good.
ReplyDeleteWhat variety of dill is growing with your strawberries? It looks like a really sturdy beautiful plant.
The tomatoes look healthy so the delay in spraying with the fungicide does not seem to be causing you problems. I think you sling will work wonderfully.
Laura, in 2009 we had a really cool summer too. The Diamants produced, but getting them started that year was impossible. Because of the constant rain the slugs had armies and the cucumbers were taken down before they could get very far. I don't know the variety of dill. It was dill that I've had for about 15 years self sowing in the garden. The widest girth is about an inch. But that is where it has no competition. In the main garden they are much narrower, but not shorter.
ReplyDeleteWhy do you net up the melons? And do you do this to all melons or only specific ones?
ReplyDelete