Mid-June veg garden updates
Peas
Peas that I started in January indoors and set out a few weeks later are really pumping out the pods at this time. My very favorite variety is simply called Sugar Snap. I find anything else in the name besides Sugar Snap and they just don’t taste very good. Last year I saved some seed… it seems some of them reverted to shelling peas. Oh well, they still taste great.
This variety, gets to 7’ tall and requires support. I’ve made a permanent structure in my garden for them, and don’t bother with rotation. The area is about 2’x8’, enclosed with 1’ of chicken wire (keeps the rabbits away and a mild deterrent to the chickens). I run twine between tall t-posts to give the peas something to climb.
This year I hope to get around to trying overwintering peas, started in the fall. Maybe I’ll get harvests even earlier. Have any of you ever tried this?
Lettuce is growing well
Lettuce is coming on strong from a mid-march starting date. I don’t typically start lettuce so early (due to slugs), but I was feeling ambitious this year. They happened to go in the ground during a warm period, where the slugs weren’t so active, and they were sizable. I almost lost them due to slug predation, as I reported in my last posting… but I saved them when a strong rain storm came (the slugs come out in full force during moderate temperature moist periods).
Did you guys catch the Contaminated documentary on Netflix? I learned that greens coming out of a valley in California, very commonly sold in the grocery store, are the most likely contaminated with e-coli and the like. The reason being - they are grown near cow fields, and the runoff from those fields are what is used to irrigate the crops nearby. Gross.
This, combined with all the plastic and transportation required to ship greens, has had me feeling more committed to home grown greens versus store bought. If I make it to a farmer’s market I’m ok with that option too.
I’d love to have more lettuce during the hot months, as this is the time of year one is really inclined to eat cold salads. I came across some spendy Butter head lettuce named Casey from Osborne that are described as a good choice for long day length production (normally they go to seed this time of year and become bitter). I sure hope they work out well. Stay tuned.
More parsley please
Another “green” I’d really like to have more of is parsley. I don’t know what it is about parsley - but I love parsley the way other people love basil. The trouble is, I have a hard time getting it going.
First, the seed takes forever to come up. After it does come up, it takes forever to get it to size. Often I put it in the ground to make room for other seedlings I’m tending to, only to find slugs have devoured the young plants. Last year I didn’t get any parsley.
Patience is needed. Ideally the seedlings should be very well-sized and go out when slugs are less likely to be active. This means June-ish, perhaps earlier if I am on slug patrol.
I also considered that perhaps one of my issues with parsley is that old seed that isn’t quite as vigorous, so recently purchased some Peione parsley from its description of resisting bolting. Perhaps it will last longer in the year. BTW - 25M is a ton of seed - if you need parsley I’m your gal.
Garlic update:
Garlic has flowered and some will be ready for harvest soon. This last season I thought I had found THE variety I’d like to focus on in my garden. I’ve had some of it before and thought it was great. Red Toch. It is an artichoke style, which lasts quite a while. And, it harvests early in June, when it is easy to get other crops established in that space before planting garlic again (beets, basil, heat tolerant greens, etc.).
Since I’ve long ago mixed up the varieties of garlic I have been planting, I decided to make an order from Filaree to make sure I had quite a bit of this variety.
About 1/3 of the cloves looked like this - and got money back for 1/3 of the order. The supplier said that they believe this was bruising due to poor handling conditions and definitely not white rot, which was my initial suspicion (their fields are tested for this pathogen). I planted what little was left, and about half of them didn’t make it. I wonder if they actually just sent me the previous year’s garlic harvest. We will see what happens when I dig up the rest.
Tomatoes
In the tomato world - some failures to report. Most notably I was hoping to get to taste Baylor’s Paste this year, but the plant has succumbed to slugs.
It was the same size as all other seedlings I set out, well-grown, and I am a little surprised by this. I’ll try again next year - maybe it was a one-off? However, in my experience, it does seem that there are some tomato varieties that slugs seem attracted to more than others.
I was hoping to trial a few new-to-me Blossom End Rot resistant paste tomatoes. However, by the time it occurred to me to try them, it was too late to order seeds so I had to seek them out as starts. I have one Pomodoro Squisito that is growing well from Portland Nursery, and another that is looking rather spindly and awful from a tomato grower in Estacada. I also have Pozzano from this grower, also looking very sad. They looked awful to begin with and I was nervous about planting them, but figured they might outgrow their issues. They may still, but the slugs seem to think the spindly foliage is yummy and aren’t growing well otherwise. Neglected to take a photo for you - oops.
Since the paste tomatoes may not work out so well, I decided to go ahead and start some quick-to-mature Sunrise Sauce yesterday. Nice to have a backup option, but they aren’t my favorite for flavor.
Kale is growing strong
These kales I started from seed late February. They’ve mostly grown well except for that crazy rainstorm when the slugs came from every corner of the yard looking for something to eat.
Spinach is finished
I made two sowings of spinach this year. One I started indoors in March. The other I direct-seeded outdoors a few weeks later. The earlier planting gave me bigger leaves, but they both did well, with very little slug damage. Both sowings bolted within a few days of each other. I hope to try this one over-wintered this year as well.
Asparagus is winding down
My established Millenium asparagus bed has been giving me 1/2-1 pound for several weeks - we can certainly use more. This year I added another asparagus bed to satisfy our appetites for something green in April/May/June.
As you can see these are some awfully puny looking plants, and hoping they do ok. These are Jersey Knight from Territorial. I should probably have just started with seeds versus these tiny little crowns. I’ve never seen them sold so small.
I have another few crowns of I’ve set out from Fedco which are Purple Passion. The crowns were a touch bigger but surprisingly pretty small once they came up too. We’ll see.
Fruit garden updates coming soon!
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My peas always get ahead of me and mature. Apparently some popped and planted themselves. I had peas coming up as early as January. Later I thought”well if it’s arhat easy I’ll just throw some seeds out there”. I did, threw a sprinkling of used potting soil over top, and sure enough I got plenty of pea plants which I am harvesting peas from now.
Cosmonaut Volcov is my fav also. I’ve planted Golden treasures for several years now. It’s very productive with firm fruits that never get soft and last clear to December even (not in refrigeration), but don’t have a lot of taste. But, hey, homegrown tomato nutrition in December!
Very impressive start to your veggie season! I'm several years from being this disciplined to get out ahead of the season--keep up the good work!