The carrot seed I planted did not germinate particularly well. The rainbow carrots from Park Seed (did better than the traditional type I planted. So I just had to pull one out and see how it was doing. It did not want to come out of the ground easily. Perhaps I packed the soil when I filled the raised beds a bit too much for getting nice carrots. The roots were a little crooked but there was no branching. While it was still a bit on the slender side, the carrot was long. When I measured the underground part, it was longer than the twelve inch ruler. No wonder it was hard to pull. The roots are working their way beyond the 1/2 inch hardware cloth gopher barrier attached to the bottom of the raised beds — they are only 11 inches deep.
Garden
More veggies on the way
This past week lots more blooms were appearing in the garden. Pumpkins and acorn squash started blooming. Since these are like the zucchini in that they have separate male and female flowers, it remains to be seen how difficult it will be to get them to set fruit. The vines and bushes are all growing vigorously at this point, with the pumpkin vines starting to take over the garden paths. The potato patch also has been blooming. Hopefully that is a sign that it is growing lots of nice tubers below ground. I would poke around in the soil to find out, but the access is a bit difficult with peas growing on one side and green beans on the other.
And finally, a couple days ago, both of those started flowering as well. When I went out to check on things today, I found a couple pea pods forming and likewise some miniature green beans.
First Zucchini for Dinner
At least we had our first zucchini make it to the dinner table. It looks like helping mother nature a bit with the pollination has made a difference. Most of the female flowers were just rotting away after the flower faded. A couple almost happened like the one pictured on the right side. Collecting pollen from the male flowers and saving in the fridge for a day or so to use when the female flower opened has gotten us a couple nice zucchinis with perhaps another one or two that will be ready soon.
The peas and green beans are still not cooperating. We have harvested enough lettuce leaves for a few salads. Our weather has been pretty cool with the morning fog sticking around a long time. Perhaps the warmer temperatures promised for the coming week will make a difference.
Not much of a harvest for July 4th
When I ordered the seeds for the garden I had dreams of fresh corn, green beans, tomatoes and other veggies being ready to eat by Juny 4th. However, the weather and other circumstances did not cooperate, so they were planted at least a month too late to make this coming week’s holiday feast.
The zucchini is not over producing like most zucchini plants tend to do. It does not seem to have many male flowers needed for pollination and those few it does have tend to open when there are no female flowers open. Bees seem to be scarce as well, so I am trying to collect pollen for use a day or so later as well as experimenting with use of pollen from another type of squash.
Meannwhile, the baby bok choi are starting to flower before I realized they could be harvested. I had never grown bok choi before and did not realize that the outer leaves which flared out giving the plants a flat appearance were actually hiding the pale stem structure I had knew from the grocery store produce shelves.
I can’t tell what the potatoes are doing underground, but they are certainly pushing out a lot of green leaves above ground. Likewise the green beans and peas are taking their time getting to the flowering stage. The lettuce, spinach and carrots did not germinate well. It is time to plant additional seeds to create later crops. The garden is not growing quite the way it was designed on paper. However, for a starter garden it looks like it is going well. I am happy to see that at least some of the plants appear to be doing what the catalog pictured — just off to a bit of a late start.
End of June in the Garden
There is lots of vegetative growth. Still waiting on the green beans and peas to do something that can go to the dinner table. The catalog entries for the tomatoes in the foreground said they should be ready for July 4th burgers. However, I don’t think I got them into the ground even close to when they should have been planted for that timing.
A patch of sunflowers mixed with squash in the foreground, and two corn varieties behind them. According to the catalogs the sunflowers should have normal sized flowers on stems that are only a couple feet tall. And the corn varieties had significantly different dates for maturity so they should not ruin each other by cross pollination. That is the theory — remains to be seen if it works in practice.