Mid-June

Three sisters mounds. Corn is up, beans aren't but I transplanted a couple, squash is just starting to germinate at the bottom of the mounds.

Potatoes are growing well.

Golden bantam corn 8 or 9 inches on center. Plus I planted beans to help fertilize the soil.

Covered bed. Cucumber transplants not doing well, I didn't harden them off. Eggplants just emerging, then parsnips.

Parsnips with cucumbers in the back of row, carrots, lettuce, peas.

Peas are producing everyday now. One problem, we want to eat them so much that we haven't allowed the peas to swell in the pods and we just eat them pods and all.

Broccoli is starting to pop its flowers up.

Peas, radishes all got harvested/red romaine (hiding behind peas), chard/collards, kale/broccoli

Kale/broccoli, seeds I planted last month are starting to get bigger so I am harvesting the older spinach and lettuce to give them some sunlight, spinach/lettuce, turnips, spinach

Blackeyed pea in the asparagus bed and if you look closely in the right corner an asparagus frond popping out. Only one side of the bed has produced shoots. I planted two different varieties, one on each side of the bed, so only one variety has come out of the soil. I wonder if the other roots were not viable or they are just slower.

Hops bine is growing tall but the lower leaves are browning and that is slowly working its way up the plant. I'm not sure why. I think I took care of the aphids with diatomaceous earth and I saw a ladybug on there yesterday, but a lot of tiny fly-ish bugs are sheltering underneath the leaves. Not sure what they are or what they do.

The neighbor's tree was making such a loud hum this week. I don't know what kind of tree it is, I will try to get a picture. Whatever it is, it produced some sort of bloom (that didn't even look like flowers to me) that drove the bees wild. There were thousands of bees on that tree. The buzzing was so loud that you could hear them inside the house with doors and windows shut. Glad to see that honeybees are alive and kicking by my house. I found out that my leafy greens are getting buzzed by leaf-cutter bees--who knew there were such things? But why are wasps so interested in the leafy veggies?

In the 90's

The asparagus patch is now all full with dirt. A few fronds are poking up through the soil. But it looked empty, so I planted some blackeyed peas to see what they would do with all that space.

End of the 8' asparagus bed, the soil goes downhill from 15" high to 7" high. Wonder if I'll have run-off problems? Chioggia beets next, more seeds have sprouted now that the weather has really warmed up. 80's and 90's the last 5 days with night time temps above 55.

I put in some cucumber seedlings, lemon variety, yesterday. I am not diligent about hardening off my plants. We will see if they survive. Next to that is the eggplant area. A few have pushed themselves up through the soil and also some cucumber seeds I put in the ground in March finally popped up. Nifty how that works.

Then the parsnips. The one in the bottom left has been growing since March, then I pushed in more seeds in April or May and 2 more sprouted. I thought I was just a bad parsnip planter, but maybe they like warmer weather than I thought because all of a sudden there are about 20 new sprouts. In the center is a pepper plant I put in yesterday, carrots, then lettuce and peas.

The pea plants are flowering and setting pods. I am excited. I hope they are able to produce peas before the hot weather wilts them. Then red romaine which is hiding behind the peas/radishes which we've pulled most of them-tasty!, Collard greens are growing fast/swiss chard which is not, Broccoli is about to push up their flowers/Kale.

Here you see the broccoli/kale then lettuce/mystery cole plant I can't remember what I seeded & spinach, turnips, more spinach.

Hops are growing tall, but we are encountering issues. Aphids and brown spots on the lower leaves which I think are downy mildew. Need to limit watering from the top and get some ladybugs.

Potatoes growing well.

One giant peach and a few little ones in this photo.