| I took a lot of photos, so let's start with the newest sprouts. The radishes are sprouting and so is the lettuce. The radishes have full sun in my square garden bed. The lettuce is planted in small two gallon pots in the shade of my trees to minimize burning from the sun. |
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| Tiny radish sprouts even cool weather |
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| The lettuce sprouted too this week |
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| This past week (Wed. - Saturday) we had very cool weather and rain, which normally would have little impact on bell pepper plants, except we had a heavy hail during one thunder storm on Friday... And, yes, the poor bell peppers got hit hard. |
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| Holes in the Pepper plant leaves |
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| Pepper plant leaves sliced and diced |
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| A different type of damage to my berries. I pulled the berries into the greenhouse (along with the tomatoes) before the cold temps set in. So they were protected. On Saturday, I even ate my first sweet taste of strawberries of the season. But, I'm not the only one who loves sweet strawberries. The ants came in for the meal last night. I have since sprayed WD40 around the buckets to keep new ones away. This does a nice job of keeping them out of the berries (since they can't fly) and I am not inclined to spray anything ON the plants. But, yah, those little buggers make quick work on some very nice ripe strawberries! |
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| Looks GREAT from the back side. Ha! |
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| Half the berry eaten by tiny ants! |
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| Newer Berry Plant from Last Year |
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| Biggest Producer this Year |
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Okay, so now let's look at the Garlic and Onions. Hey the fall planted Garlic is still looking great. Fingers crossed that we actually get nice, solid garlic from this crop. This is the last month and they should start sending up some spiraly scapes soon. Cut those off for cooking since leaving them will hinder the size of the garlic.
I never seem to have very good luck with onions. But I keep trying. So, this year's got pummeled in one of our thunder/wind storms back in May, and I just don't think they are going to revive.
In two 5 gal buckets are the ones I salvaged from the garden bed before I prepped it for this year's garden. Some are surviving, two have gone to seed, and three are struggling. So it is anyone's guess. I have photos of the "buds" on the two "seed" onions, below. |
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| Garlic near the end |
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| Beat Up Onions |
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| Salvaged Onions |
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| Onion Blooming for Seeds |
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| At least I was smart enough to pull in the tomatoes before this week's storm hit. They are doing well; growing fairly fast. |
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| German Blooming |
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| Purple Cherokee Blooms |
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| SunGold Tomatoes -n- Blossoms |
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| SunGold Different Angle |
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The hail storm did NOT phase the potatoes. The potatoes are developing a lot of blossoms which is a sign that the potatoes are on the vines under ground and are growing. We will need to pull these barrels under the trees for the cooling shade (like we have for the lettuce), or the hot sun will stunt the growth of the potatoes. Once the blooms die back, the leaves will also start to dry, and then we can dig up the potatoes for storage in a cool dark box in the garage for the rest of this summer.
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| Red Potato Blossoms |
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| And that sums up the first week of June's crazy weather! |
