The Garden in June

The garden on June 30, 2024.

On this, the last day of June 2024, our garden is doing beautifully. It's always amazing to me that what began as tiny seeds can become food-bearing plants in just a little over one month's time. 

The garden on June 15, 2024, for comparison.

At the very beginning of June, we harvested all our (meager) crop of pak choi. One week ago, I picked the entirety of our arugula. It had begun to bolt because of the stupidly hot weather. My plan was always to harvest it all at one time anyway. I like putting greens like that with other, later plants. The pak choi, for example, was in the same bed as the zucchini and yellow squash. The arugula surrounded the One-Too-Many pumpkin plant.

Garden bed before and after arugula harvest

Basket o' arugula

We've also started harvesting sugar snap peas. It's just been a couple handfuls so far, but they are just starting. Maybe it's because we used to live and garden on Hoth, but I never expect pea plants to grow very tall. You would think that after nearly ten years of gardening here, I would adjust my expectations. But, no, I still only set up a short fence for the peas to climb upon.

The pea fence. So dainty.

It quickly became clear that I needed to add some height. So, we got a few 6' tall poles and I added them to either side of the existing fence. It appears that even the new height will not be enough, but the peas are just going to have to accept that. 

The new, taller, still rather dainty pea fence.

Eh, they seem happy enough.

When we got the poles for the peas, we got an extra one to add to the bean trellis in the three sisters garden bed. Unlike some beans (that shall remain unnamed), rattlesnake beans are great at finding their own way onto a trellis. They've had no problem climbing like champions as the popcorn reaches for the sky and the Long Pie pumpkin fills in around them. There are several teeny tiny pumpkins on the vines, so I have cautiously-high hopes that we'll have some to put up for the winter.

Three sister thriving. Pardon the barely-contained asparagus in the back.

Something new for us this year is a tomatillo plant. I don't think I've ever knowingly eaten a tomatillo, but I hear they are delicious, particularly in salsa verde. My husband picked up a plant when we were out getting the tomatoes and peppers and I said, why not? I had no idea that it would become the largest, lushest, fullest plant in the garden. It is beautiful, though I feel it needs to be restrained in some way. Some research is in order.

Beautiful tomatillo plant with jealous deer in the distance.

It's got lovely flowers too.

Speaking of lovely flowers (we were if you read that last caption), our trumpet vine is going crazy. I was assured when I first got it from a warm acquaintance many years ago that it would be nearly impossible to kill, in a good way. They were not lying and it is gorgeous this year. The hummingbirds like it too.

I'll have to try to get a picture of a hummingbird on the trumpet vine but those little suckers are fast. (the birds, not the vines)

And now for the wildlife update. The twin fawns are still hanging around in our backyard with their mother. There are a couple of yearlings who bound through occasionally as well. Yesterday, I saw a pair of young bucks in velvet too, so that was fun. 

Mama and babies.

I've tried to make friends with the dumb fawn. (In a pair, there is always a dumb fawn and a nervous fawn. The dumb one would probably walk right up to a person if the nervous one didn't start running.) I got close once while offering some fresh snap peas I had just picked, but I've decided it's probably not a good idea. It's better that wild animals don't get too comfortable around people, at least not making-contact comfortable. So, we will continue to be casually friendly at a distance, like good neighbors. We smile and say hi in passing but have never been formally introduced.

Hello sharer of our backyard.

In rabbit news, she may or may not be fixing to have babies under our clothesline again. Stay tuned.

 

Too Little Spring for Little Pak Choi

 

Several years ago, we discovered toy choy, a small variety of pak choi that grows quickly and can be harvested in 30 days. This was very important because our garden has cabbage worms. Yuck! I hate cabbage worms. I hate them so much that I have been known to stomp on the pretty little butterflies that make the worms like a Blue Meanie with a vendetta. We don't use poison on things we're going to eat, hand picking off the gross little creatures was tedious on kale and impossible between the layers of growing cabbage, and even row covers couldn't keep them at bay. 

 

The grand solution was toy choy, a member of the cabbage family that we could harvest before the wormage set in. One year I didn't harvest in time and was thoroughly disgusted as the bright green worms floated to the surface as I rinsed the toy choy, but otherwise we've had really good luck growing lovely crops of the tasty greens. In years past, I've had enough to freeze and pickle on top of cooking it right away. This year, unfortunately, was not one of those years. There were no worms, but not much pak choi either.

This year's toy choy (powdered with diatomaceous earth)

I'm pretty certain it was the lack of real springtime weather here that was the problem. Before the seedlings could put on any nice leaves, most of them bolted. With so much energy going into making flowers, there wasn't much left for producing the parts we actually want to eat. 

So spindly!

So, I gave in this evening and just harvested the whole lot of them. 

Yes sir, yes sir, one basket full.

I did my usual multiple rinsings, sorted and trimmed them, then spun them out in the salad spinner (one of my favorite kitchen tools ever). 

Salad spinner!

I ended up with just one gallon bread bag full of little pak choi leaves. 

Sad trombone sounds

Oh well. We'll enjoy them over the next couple of days - probably in a stir fry or cooked up with some beans - and we'll try again next year. Or maybe in the fall if it actually cools down gently enough before going right into winter.

They're small but still pretty.

And now, in backyard wildlife news, one of the new neighborhood fawns likes to rest just outside our garden gate next to the transplanted rhubarb.

Awwwwwww!

Planting Time Again

This year, we haven't had much of a spring. We jumped right into summer even though summer is still officially a month away. As the days got into the 80s and then into the 90s, I thought about planting my garden but I resisted the temptation. The average last frost date for our area is around May 15. Last spring there was a late killing frost that devastated a lot of delicate plants. I didn't want to risk it this year. I kept to my conservative schedule that has worked well for me over the last ten years.

Let's get this party started!

Step one was to start some seeds indoors. I did this on April 18. It wasn't a big year for seed starting. I decided to take the easy way and purchase my tomatoes and peppers from the local nursery. All I really planned to start were some herbs. I used Jiffy starter pellets (love them!) and my long-used starter trays to plant three cells each of parsley, thyme, and basil. And since I had the whole grow light set-up going, I checked the viability of some seeds. We had some old adzuki beans lying around that I added to the tray (spoiler: not a single one sprouted). We also had some seeds that we had saved from a Long Pie pumpkin given to my husband by a coworker some years ago and some One Too Many pumpkin seeds I took from our fall decor purchased at a local farm stand. Side note: I got some gorgeous mums from the same stand so I plan on making the effort to get more this fall. I planted three each of the pumpkins and one of each grew. 

Two out of six ain't bad, I guess.

Step two was to directly sow the cool weather seeds. (cool weather, ha!) I did this on April 27. I put in peas, beets, carrots, chard, arugula, and baby pak choi. As of today, the pak choi and arugula are going like gang busters. I have about half a dozen pea plants, a few more tiny chard plants, and maybe a dozen beets slowly growing. The carrots are non-existent. That's probably because of the age of the seeds. They were from 2018 but I figured I'd try anyway. Oh well. A few dill plants seeded themselves. As for the perennials, the chives are doing beautifully, as always, the asparagus is producing faster than we can eat it, and the rhubarb is thriving after I split it. I finally got enough in one harvest to make a full pie rather than just a tart.

Our version of cooling the rhubarb pie on the windowsill.

So, that brings us to step three. I planted the rest of the garden today. I always like to plant on Memorial Day weekend. Step 3a was transplanting our seedlings. Along with my nine herb plants, two pumpkins, and five Greek basil cuttings propagated by my husband, we had a beefsteak tomato, a grape tomato, a tomatillo, and a pepperoncini pepper purchased from one of our local nurseries. (I was a bit disappointed when I saw the plants were brought into the nursery from a larger company but it was still supporting a small business.)

We gave the young 'uns a week of hardening off before putting them out into the big world.

I've always heard that pumpkins resent being transplanted. I'm not sure how true that is. The last time I tried starting pumpkins indoors then planting them out, crows found the seedlings within a day and tore them out of the ground. If I was a pumpkin, I'd probably resent that. I'm hoping our big guys will settle into the garden well this year.

Come on buddy! Think happy thoughts!

Step 3b is putting in the seeds. This year I planted my usual round of beans (purple, turtle, and rattlesnake), as well as, zucchini, cucumbers, parsnips, and daikon. I put in more peas as well to fill out the row and tried my version of a three sisters garden with strawberry popcorn, the long pie pumpkin, and rattlesnake beans all in the same bed together.

If you look carefully you can see the beans below the twine and the red popcorn in the foreground. And don't forget the pumpkin lurking in the back.

So, there it is. The garden is in! I patted the seeds and told them to "do their duty." Then we watered them in and did a little rain dance so it would rain this afternoon. (It did but not yet as much as I would have liked so far.) I'm looking forward to see how everything grows!

And now on to the obligatory critter shots. Here is a rabbit chilling next to our house.

We had to make some repairs to the fence to keep the bunnies out of the garden this year. I know we've let them have babies there for several years (see here and here and here too) but the inn is now closed. So, we added a layer of chicken wire around the bottom of the fence where the rabbits had been getting in. It doesn't keep the chipmunks out but we seem to be bunny-free so far. (knock on wood!)

Notice how the black mesh is neatly chewed off to allow bunny entrance.

 And finally, here's a baby bird in our cedars.

Maybe a baby cardinal?

 

Rebuild Time

The garden at the very start of the rebuild.

We first built our little garden way back in 2015. We had just moved into our new house the summer before and we transformed the old broken-down above-ground pool in the back yard into my rendition of a Shaker-style garden. (Read about the building process here, here, and here.) Well, nine years have passed and the plywood on the beds is falling apart, the fence has gone wavy, and the gate is held together with twine. So, it's rebuild time!

My husband found some metal garden beds online for a good price so we ordered six of them - enough to redo half the garden. We decided to wait on the other half because I haven't decided how to deal with the established asparagus and herb beds yet. The new beds arrive a few days later in flat packages and then the work began.

Production begins.

He took on the production of the beds and I lightly supervised. They seemed to go together fairly easily and while they are rather light-duty, they are as expected for the cost. In a couple of evenings after work, he got all six assembled and ready to be put into place.

New beds ready to go.

There were four old wooden beds to be removed. Two of them measured 11 feet by 4 feet and two more were 11 feet by 2 feet. That's 132 square feet of space filled  probably 8 to 10 inches deep with soil that all needed to be moved so that we could put in the new metal beds. 

So much dirt to move.

My husband got started with the shoveling while I was at work and I jumped in during two of my vacation days. We shoveled soil from one bed onto the others, removed the gravel that made paths between the beds, then tore out the wooden boards. 

Out with the old and ready for the new.

We shoveled and shoveled and hoed and raked and rested and got back to it as we watched the forecast for incoming rain. We were really lucky to get a couple of solid days with glorious spring weather in which to work.

More than halfway there.

It was a multi-day project with plenty of aches and pains and bruises to go around but I actually really enjoyed the work. Not that I'm anxious to do it again right away, but I don't dread the second half of the project next year.

All done!

Though we're finished replacing half the beds, as planned, there's still more to do this season. We're going to re-do the fence next, probably with a new gate. The wooden walkway is still nicely solid, though, and will stay as it is for many years to come. 

Rhubarb still a little droopy from the transplant.

Now it's time to turn my attention to the plants. During the earth-moving process, I split up our rhubarb and moved half of it outside the garden. I also weeded the asparagus bed and had my first harvest of chives. I hope to get the hardier seeds into the ground this weekend (though I haven't worked out an actual plan yet) and there's still a good month and some days before the more delicate veg gets planted. I'm excited to get things started!

Toad!

And, as always, there was at least one animal involved in our goings-on. I uncovered this little toad in a shovel of gravel. I don't think I hurt him but he wasn't thrilled with the paparazzi treatment.

Beans!

I’ve found that beans are one of the easiest things to grow in my little backyard garden. I didn’t plant any this year but, in the past, I have grown purple, yellow, and green beans to use fresh and frozen as well as rattlesnake and turtle beans for shelling. I tried lima beans and long Thai beans once each. I even experimented with garbanzos back when we were living on the mountain. The plants were beautiful, but they didn’t make a single bean.

My absolute favorite are climbing shell beans. I just love the entire process of planting them, training the vines to a homemade trellis, waiting for the pods to grow full then dry, and finally spending an afternoon on the porch shelling them.

New rattlesnake bean seedlings.

Training onto the trellis.

Bean blossoms.

Looking good!

Starting to dry out now.

Ready to shell.

Beans!

I’ve never planted enough for them to be a staple of our winter diet, but there are usually plenty for a few batches of baked beans or soups. I just used some of our dry beans collected a couple years ago for some good old fashion Boston baked beans.

From the jar...

...into the pot...

...and ready to serve.

Now I kinda feel bad that I didn’t plant any beans at all this year. Oh well. I’ll add them to my plans for next season.

And here's a bunny, just because.