Mint, lemon balm, and rosemary

Early June 2015

So the garden is in full force. I'm struggling to keep up with the lettuce picking! I've picked 17 bags of lettuce, and picked 13 full heads of lettuce before they bolted. The mint and lemon balm are thriving, since I've been cutting them back in order to supply friends at work with herbs for their water!


Potatoes

 The potatoes are going nuts, and already flowering.

The squash and beans are burgeoning!



Artichokes, Hubbard squash, and an eggplant

The lettuce bed, some already harvested



Tomatoes, acorn squash, chard, garlic, shallots

Onions of various kinds; kale, kalette, broccolis, kohlrabi

The bush beans are flowering, and I already have (at last count) 9 squash set on the squash plants. I'm a little concerned for the cucumbers, since they seem to be getting a bit overwhelmed by the squash; but perhaps that will suit them well, so that they don't dry out as quickly as they did last year (fingers crossed, the bitter cucumbers were horrible!) Tomatoes are already blooming, and cherry tomatoes are already setting. The pole beans are diligently climbing the trellis, as well as anything they can reach. I had to pull one off of one of the tomatoes the other day and encourage it in another direction! I have three or four peppers already set on the plants as well. I've had to cut back most of the chard because of leaf miners; hopefully the current heat will discourage any more of them. I've had a battle with the aphids on the brassicas as always, but have discovered that early, intense, and repeated applicaations of neem oil (totally organic) does the trick. I had to pull one plant, though, that was tiny, weak, and totally infested. But since I have ample kale plants, I figured sacrificing one wasn't going to be a big issue. Now I just have to keep on top of the infestation!

The hardneck garlic is starting to send up scapes, right on time (maybe a week earlier than last year, though!) So this means I have about a month until harvest time, I think. It's thriving this year, and seems to love my garden. I'm trying shallots for the first time, and they seem to be doing well. The onions have finally recovered from whatever trauma they have endured, although the crop won't be as good as last year, due to the damping off that happened with the seedlings. Maybe I'll try growing some over the winter this year.

So that sums up the progress on the garden this season! I've already had a 61% return on investment so far this season . . . as long as I don't count time as part of the investment!