There had been a two foot wide path between the raised beds. And four feet between the beds and the fence. However in the last week the paths have begun to disappear under the vegetation. Everything seems to be a lot taller than I was expecting it to grow — and I don’t mean the extra almost a foot that the raised beds provides. I don’t know what I was thinking. I guess I wasn’t very optimistic about how well the garden would grow.
For a while, that seemed like the correct view. However, in the last couple weeks a critical mass situation must have arisen with the vegetation being sufficient so that the plants started blooming and putting out a lot more growth as well. The pumpkins are taking over one corner of the garden area. And the tomatoes have claimed the opposite corner. The stakes I used for the tomatoes were overwhelmed by the plants and disappeared in the foliage. A few days ago I noticed that the tomatoes were starting to lean over to one side — they were bending the stakes or pulling them out of the ground. I added more stakes by one set of problem plants and ran string around the whole thing to hold it in place. No sooner than that was done then I realized another group was tilting. By time I went out the next morning, two tomato plants were laying on the savory and basil while a third when across the path to rest on the cornstalks.
The seed catalogs list these varieties as “indeterminate” — thus no maximum height given. The slightly less than a foot depth of the raised beds was not enough to anchor the stakes for the now heavy plants. Even if there wasn’t the hardware cloth gopher barrier below, I suspect I still would have had problems with the staking. Now that I saw what happened, I have a sense of deja-vu. My first garden in Saratoga used stakes instead of cages for the tomatoes. I switched to wire cages and things were so much better in later years.
It is too late for wire cages this year. For now, 6 foot T-posts just outside the beds next to the groups of tomatoes will have to do. Between them there are four or five rows of jute string with the tomatoes captured in the middle. There were some crunching noises coming from the plants as I tried to get them upright. Time will tell if it the plants are completely broken or just badly battered. Next year I will have wire cages for the tomatoes and also as a trellis for the peas.
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. 
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.
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. 
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.