What Looks Best?

[digitS']

Some of you are in the thick of harvesting. An entire crop may be gone from the garden. That's true with radish here and the earliest lettuce is going. The lettuce is just fine but making a dash for the finish line in record heat. The radish was barely okay in April before bolting like rockets! Oh yeah, the "rocket," arugula, has pretty much blasted off ... is that where this salad green got its name?

My first sowings of sweetcorn and bush beans are only inches high. It's difficult to assess how they might perform in a couple of months. The melon plants are just deciding to grow - I'm anticipating a stellar melon year but no one could know that by looking at the plants ...

The tomatoes are topsy turvy from the windstorms again in 2016! No, not the planters and growing system. "Real" topsy turvy, mostly growing off, flat against the ground, and in the downwind direction. I'm giving them a hard squint when I'm out there, trying to assess flea beetle population and damage as the pests may take advantage in the plants' vulnerable state. Actually, the tomatoes at home in my sheltered backyard look the best in 2016, again. Kimberley has a bunch of green fruit.

The wind and flea beetles have caused real damage to the broccoli. I guess I should have sprayed them but with the sudden onslaught of scorching heat, the spray itself would have stressed the plants ... oh, I'm just making an excuse. @Ridgerunner may be able to say that his cauliflower is already performing famously but my broccoli is in a serious struggle.

@baymule may say it's her crookneck squash, that's off to a head start against the competition. What looks good to you as the first week of June comes to a close - harvesting or anticipating the harvest? For my gardens, it's probably the silly pumpkins. I've got a hose bib and sprinkler on the final section of irrigation pipe so that if the field sprinkler plugs and fails this year, the silly Jack o'lanterns won't burn up months before Halloween. The corn, beans and melons better come through, as well!!

Steve

 

[Ridgerunner]

A lot of things look pretty good. I'll stick that cauliflower photo in this thread too, I am pleased with that. It's a new variety to me, Candid Charm. One thing I liked about it, other than 4 out of 5 heads producing really well, is that the leaves were long enough and wide enough that they were easy to tie up to blanche it. I've had issues with that in other cauliflower. I hope I can get the starts of Candid Charm from the local Mom 'n Pop garden store again next year. I'll tell them how well it performed to hopefully push them to offer it again.

My Tendersweet carrots did really well but my Imperator carrots are struggling. I started the Imperator about three weeks later, maybe that's the difference. Radish and lettuce performed well but are done. I put about 16 cups of green peas in the freezer yesterday, plus we ate off of them some. I'll get one more very small picking in a week. Those did OK but not gangbusters. I grow Little Marvels, a bush variety and don't stake them. It was so wet at harvest time I'd have been better off with a staked variety. It's usually not wet this time of year. Looks like it will revert to the normal dry, at least in the 10-day forecast.

My Copenhagen cabbage has some huge heads this year. Saurkraut is today’s project plus I’ll shred and blanch some for the freezer. I also have a couple of heads of red cabbage for the freezer. Usually with cabbage and cauliflower doing so well broccoli would have stood out too but this year it was only so-so. I grew both Green Comet and Lieutenant. I am getting those small sprouts after the harvest so I’ll have plenty of broccoli but I have a lot of broccoli plants. I’ll leave all those, cabbage, cauliflower, and broccoli plants in place and feed some leaves to the chickens. At least they are self-mulching that part of the garden. That’s another thing that’s growing really well, weeds and grass. Two weeks of neglect and wet weather can do that.

My regular red and white turnips did well. I tried 7-top turnips, they don’t bulb up but are just grown for the leaves. Beetles really liked them, they were eaten to shreds. I should have sprayed but didn’t. Kale and chard are going gangbusters. I already have what I need of them in the freezer but will probably do another round of chard. The beets are looking really good. They are just starting to bulb up. I’ll have plenty to can and pickle.

I had problems with flea beetles on eggplants but they are recovering nicely. I noticed yesterday it’s time to spray them again though. I have several blooms and a few eggplants started. In my garden eggplant are a trap crop for flea beetles even when they are healthy.

My corn and beans look really good but they are just starting. Tomatoes and peppers are dragging a bit but it’s still early for them. They will be OK. At least the tomatoes and half the peppers are mulched. That’s where I’m really behind, getting the garden mulched.

I’ve been getting a lot of blueberries and my blackberries are loaded with blooms and immature berries. They are just starting to ripen, I’ve munched on a few blackberries but will soon need to get serious about picking them. My mulberries are starting to ripen too. I really like mulberry jelly plus I use extra fruit and berries to make a “mixed fruit” jelly. I think mulberries add a really nice flavor to that.

I’m headed out in a few minutes to harvest the last of the bok choi. My first planting did not germinate very well so I did a later larger planting that did germinate very well. Same seeds, not sure what happened. But I wound up with a lot that will soon be too mature to use, especially with it turning hot here. I’ll take that into a local food bank and see if they can give it away. I have an idea not many people will know what bok choi is. I know it’s one of your favorites, Steve. We like it but we don’t do nearly as much stir-fry as you.

My apple trees are loaded. I’ve been spending spare time thinning them, those short bits of time you wind up with that you can’t do a big project. I finished that last night. Off of four fairly small trees I threw away at least ten gallons of small apples, golf ball size or smaller. I’ll have so many apples it’s ridiculous. We won’t talk about my other fruit trees, the apples are doing great.

That’s pretty much a rundown. I’m sure I’m forgetting a few things. Overall it’s been a really good spring and summer holds a lot of promise. Spring was a little early and was warmer and drier than normal, but with enough rain. We’ll see how hot and dry summer is.

 

[Carol Dee]

WOW some parts of the country are way ahead of me. The peas look great. Looks like we will get some this year. Green beans only about 1/2 are up. So we stuck some more seed between those. Potatoes look good, blooming now. Blueberries are loaded. Can't wait for those to ripen and try to beat the wildlife to them.

 

[Jared77]

Ummm my rhubarb looks good it all survived the massive snail attack of 2015.

Too early to tell on everything else. Got a bit of a late start so hoping to do fall peas since the spring ones didn't happen. Warm weather came fast and stayed (which it never does).

 

[thistlebloom]

I'm so far behind it's not funny. My peppers are blooming and have some small fruits. I'm not going to talk about tomatoes...The apple trees are loaded like Ridge was saying his were. I'll have to thin, though that's so hard for me to do. All those little potentials!
My new blueberries are also bearing heavily and my designer blueberries in the patio barrel are ridiculous overachievers this year. More berries than leaves!
The weeds are awesome and robust too in all of my flowerbeds.

 

[ninnymary]

We had our first pickings of green beans yesterday! We love green beans and zucchini. I need to find some more people to give it to! Our plums are all ripening at the same time. Eating plums like crazy every day. Eating blueberries also. Some are covered with netting and some are not. Glad the birds haven't discovered the uncovered ones.

Mary

 

[Ridgerunner]

Corn, beans, grass, and weeds.

Peppers and grass. Snowy Eggplant up front.

A walkway, landscaping cloth with wood chips to keep the grass at a distance

Chard and Kale

Beets

Japanese Eggplant

Zestar apples, my earliest one. Others aren't as big.

Tomatoes, mulched and caged

Potatoes looking good

More Chard and Kale.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Bok Choi ready to go to the food bank

I have at least 30 feet of these blackberries.

Blue Lake bush beans just starting to bloom. At least they are mulched.

As you can see, I was not joking about a good crop of grass and weeds.

 

[baymule]

Beautiful garden @Ridgerunner !!!! When my garden grows up I hope it looks like yours.

What I expect from my garden this year is more yellow squash! The potatoes are blooming and will be ready to dig soon, we'll see what I get. The seed potatoes were free, at the feedstore, so I figured what the heck. It was late (for here) and they were all shriveled, but came right up and looked good. I have 4 bell pepper plants that are blooming. The Painted Mountain corn (second planting because of crows) is tasseling and making silks. The tomatoes are blooming and making green tomatoes. Oh how we have missed tomatoes! I planted calico peas, had to replant, they look ok, not great, just ok. Some things look great, some don't and some just fizzled and died. Some never even came up. I am delighted with anything I get. Why aren't weeds a vegetable???

Yellow squash vines

Zucchini squash not doing so great

Tomatoes, double row and they are healthy and making tomatoes! The Painted Mountain corn is to the right.

 

[spookybird]

Wow what a beautiful garden you have.
Lots of good stuff there.
Thanks for sharing you pics.