What's Growing in May

You can blame Granny for this post as she was showing what was growing in the different sections of her garden and it reminded me I hadn't done that in a long time. Or maybe never this year. Recently I've just focused on what I've done in the garden and not how the plants are doing. I used to do overhead views of the garden too that I haven't done in ages. You won't get that today, but I will go through what is in each bed. Just for reference each bed is 4'x16' and each is divided into two. Often different things are growing in different ends of the beds.

The first bed finally got weeded yesterday. It has peas growing all long the right edge. Much of the closer area is in carrots (the part with all the sticks to try to keep the cats out) and I hadn't weeded them since they came up. There were a lot of dill seeds in the soil and they came up at the same time so I had to wait until I could tell the two apart easily. The rest of the bed is in lettuce (both close and at the other end), celery, parsley, mache going to seed, basil, and marjoram. I think of this bed as my miscellaneous greens bed. If I do it right I'll keep reseeding lettuce in the far end all summer long, but the odds are I'll get lazy and quit. Or get tired of lettuce.

Bed 2 is my allium bed. It does have a small patch of four different lettuces growing at the more shaded end (close to the camera). I'll let those four go to seed and they won't get in the way. I have three kinds of onions and at the very far end that sticks up more is my garlic.

Bed 3 has a small section of radishes and nothing else. This bed and bed 4 will be my two sisters garden when summer finally hits. I'm sure this patch of radishes will be gone by then as they are just starting to root up.

This half of bed 5 is my Asian greens bed and is by far the prettiest one if you peek under the covers. I love all the different textures. And though I call it my Asian greens bed it also had kohlrabi in there. I ought to think of it as my quick maturing brassica bed, as everything in here will have to be out by June 1st when I plant up this bed in sweet potatoes (if the slips ever get big enough - but that is another story). The unseen section of bed 5 is my broccoli and chard bed. It is also covered to keep out the insects. So far it is growing well.

Bed 6 is my fava bed. I have half the bed done in fava beans. I need to get some bamboo poles and string out to make sure they don't blow over some day. They aren't nearly tall enough to need it yet, but they grow quickly.

Bed 7 is half planted in my cabbages. I currently have Michihili cabbage, Napa cabbage, and Early Jersey cabbage growing there. In addition there are some undersown turnips. Soon I'm going to seed some Brussels sprouts which I have yet to succeed in growing but hope spring eternal. The cabbages are covered so the caterpillars can't get to them. I still see a few signs of the plants getting chewed on. I'll have to put some Sluggo out soon to control the slugs. I'm shocked there are any slugs out there right now. We didn't get rain for weeks. Luckily now we have had a small bit of rain and are in for more of the next few days.

Bed 8 is half planted in kale. Well was half planted in kale. Not many are left now. The other half of the bed is asparagus which I put in yesterday. I really hope the newly planted asparagus grows.

What I think of as bed 9 really isn't a bed, but three beds. It is what I call my circle garden which is raised by bricks. In the middle is the herb circle pictured above. It also has two beds that I photographed last week which are planted in spinach. Together those two beds have close to the same area as my regular beds even if their shapes are a little strange.

I do have more garden area, but that is all my raised area. Most of the rest of the yard and garden either has fruits, herbs, or decorative plants. I don't grow vegetables anywhere but in the raised portions anymore. There is one patch of perennial onions in the front yard, but those are my townhouse mates' onions. They were brought up I think from Alabama from a relative of theirs. So I don't tend to harvest any. I can. I've been told to if I need any, but I've had lots of self sown bunching onions this spring, so there has been no need.