From faithful commentor Marvel:
And so it begins….
They look so peaceful when they’re young — what could possibly go wrong?
***********
One of the local restaurants has started offering a “grilled bruschetta” made with zucchini slices & a sliver of prosciutto standing in for the local tomatoes that aren’t yet available. Darn tasty!
On the north-of-Boston gardening front, my local gardening center turned out to be almost out of basil plants. I had to settle for a couple of very young Italian Sweets and a lemon basil, which is my own fault for waiting until mid-June. But there were quite a few tomato plants — some of them with full-sized fruits! — still waiting for a home; I found the Ramapo I’d been hunting unsuccessfully online. On an impulse, also picked up a “Sweet Seedless“… can’t be any worse a mistake than last year’s Indigo Rose, which was a waste of space & sunlight. We’ll see!
What’s going on in your gardens this week?
hildebrand
The zucchini blossoms have been particularly tasty in all of the Florence restaurants this last week. Even my favorite little hole-in-the-wall sandwich shop has been putting them on their sandwiches.
raven
Tomatoes are getting close but the roses are totally gone. The surveyors have been working but we don’t have a clear picture of where the new sewer line will go. The torrential rains on the bare backyard have washed away the crushed brick paths between the raised beds.
Linda Featheringill
Garden pics!
Wide shot of the garden:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/[email protected]/9052659289/
We have tomatoes at both ends, beans and cucumbers in the back, and onions and garlic and lettuce in the front and middle.
We have a baby tomato!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/[email protected]/9054875432/in/photostream/
And, of course, Tulip. [hug]
http://www.flickr.com/photos/[email protected]/9052664145/in/photostream/
The garden itself is a raised bed, 15 x 4 feet. I have found 4 feet to be too wide. I think that 3 feet would work better. And more dirt would be better, too.
raven
@Linda Featheringill: Nice shots. I don’t know if you care but there is a was to give discreet url’s from flickr so people can just see the single photo you want to post?
eta I guess you have it set so just those pics are viewable
Ultraviolet Thunder
I’d never eaten squash blossoms until last week. I had a broth style mushroom soup with red peppers, scallions and squash blossoms. Three times. It was that good.
This year Michigan has had great growing weather. No late frost, warm days and lots of rain. My prickly pear cactus is about to blossom, and this is quite early for that plant.
Linda Featheringill
@raven:
Thanks.
Heck, I don’t know what I’m doing. You’re lucky i managed to provide pictures at all. :-)
[And how is Mrs. Raven?]
Mustang Bobby
My garden, such as it is, is going nuts because of all the rain we’ve had here in south Florida. The lawn, which normally needs cutting every two weeks, looks like a hayfield after one week. The rest of the plants — the hibiscus and its pals — are rolling around in it like it was an orgy.
raven
@Linda Featheringill: She’s better but she went to Virginia to see her aunt and family and had a flat on the van. It was a front and it was lucky that it went when she was going slowly after being on the highway for hours.
eta I DO feel lucky to see the pics!
Karla
Last year the drought got the new raspberry plants I put in, and yesterday I finally planted their replacements. I also put some canna bulbs in one of the raised beds, which offer more space than pots but should allow me to easily dig the bulbs out before winter.
geg6
Our roses are going gangbusters! Gonna snap some pics and send them in to you. My deck herb garden is also looking like mid-summer, not mid-June. And it’s not even complete as the parsley and basil are still in the greenhouse. We had a roasted chicken with homegrown garlic, thyme and rosemary and a sliced lemon under the skin for dinner last night. And the last of our asparagus on the side. Dee-lish! Just waiting for the veggies to start popping.
geg6
@Karla:
OMG, I forgot about our berry bushes! By the looks of it, we’re going to have a bumper crop of both raspberries and blackberries. So mch so that we pulled the last couple of bags from last year out of the freezer to make into pies so we could make room for this years crop.
JPL
Happy Father’s Day!
The drought appears to be over for the GA area and next week we are expected to have more rain. I have a little less than an acre of land and at this point, I’m thinking a nice condo in a 55 and older neighborhood might be more appropriate. haha
JPL
@geg6: What a feast!
geg6
@JPL:
Yes! It’s why I love having a garden so much. And even more that I have a gardener (my John) who is so good at it. Because it’s his green thumb, for the most part, not mine.
Munira
I have a nice big bed of lovely potatoes growing nicely and i just found a bag of potatoes in the root cellar i forgot i had – all sprouted and ready for planting. now trying to figure out what to do with them.
Raven
@JPL: more chainsawing today?
JPL
@Raven: The neighbor across the street has been busy since 6:30. I’m sure everyone appreciates that. City crews were out yesterday for pickup and today they are sending a crew to pick up large logs. They said they would take my pines, if I could get them to the street. hahaha..
Betty Cracker
We’ve got TONS of ripe Federle tomatoes, which have a great flavor, plus lots of hot and sweet peppers, including habaneros. I made a pretty formidable salsa with them yesterday.
Raven
@JPL: swell!
HeartlandLiberal
My son helped me start setting up the water scarecrows yesterday. By the end of an hour, I was cursing like a sailor at the shoddy quality of consumer goods we Americans pay for. Two hoses, both only two years old, expensive higher end, have started leaking around the base of male coupler. I am going to have to replace them, otherwise, once the motion detector scarecrows are up, and water turned on for overnight, the constant drip, though small, will run the water bill up.
We have to get them up, because most of the tomatoes, which I planted at first of May here in south central Indiana, are five feet high, and producing green tomatoes, and the deer will be coming to thank me for my efforts soon. I noticed a couple of the Juliet grape tomatoes are ripening already. I have chunks of Irish Spring soup hanging on cord all around the tomatoes, since many, including a friend of ours, swear it keeps the deer out. Never tried it before, have any of you tried this trick? Also, I spray every few days with Deer Off: rotten eggs, capacin, and garlic. At least I am confident the vampires will stay out of the tomatoes.
But the weather is everything. We have had plenty of rain here, all spring, until last week. Suddenly, the same pattern as last summer seems to be starting, where the promised storms and showers never materialize. I fear we are on the verge of heading into the same drought pattern as last two / three summers.
On the plus side, I harvested six beautiful heads of broccoli last week, and we will be doing a third round of my stir fry broccoli beef. The small head early cabbages are ready, and one has already gone into a stir fry last week. PIcked lots of sugar snap peas, couple of grocery bags full. Cooked so many collards and kale had to bag and freeze them for future use, and there are more ready, three varieties of kale now, plus the collards, plus the bounteous mustard greens.
We are from the deep South originally, Alabama, so greens play a dominant role in our cuisine.
Linda Featheringill
@Betty Cracker:
I had difficulty starting peppers from seed this year, although the tomatoes did pretty good. Would your hubby have any tips?
gelfling545
I just got my (2) tomato plants into pots yesterday with basil, parsley & nasturtiums. It’s raining again now so the work I planned for this am is postponed.
I have an old Dorothy Perkins rose from my childhood backyard (there are bits of it planted all over WNY due to my family & friends) that is a pretty accurate record of spring weather. In a normal (!) spring for this area it blooms a pretty medium pink. If spring is abnormally hot & dry it blooms white with just a hint of pink in the center; abnormally cool & wet – deep rose color. This year the bush is blooming in all 3 colors. Hmmm.
Todd
OT, sort of.
I found something specifically for Cole – mash ups of Arrested Development AND Game of Thrones.
http://arrestedwesteros.com/
Betty Cracker
@Linda Featheringill: He says he puts soil in Solo cups with slits in the bottom, then waters the soil, puts two or three seeds in each cup, places dry soil on that and tamps it down gently. Then he puts the cups in trays so he can water from the bottom. He transfers the plants to large containers once they have two or three sets of leaves. Our garden is 100% container because we’re in a beach area and the soil sucks.
Linda Featheringill
@Betty Cracker:
Thanks. I’ll try again next year. Maybe I’ll get lucky.
ETA: Watering from the bottom would be new to me. That might make a difference to some plants.
OzarkHillbilly
Not much to do in the garden today, just basic maintenance, maybe finish putting the row covers over the squash plants if the weather cooperates(I hear thunder now).
Took the granddaughter to the circus (Circus Flora) in St Lou yesterday. There were actually 10 of us there, brother, wife, niece, sister, husband, my son and GF as well as baby girl. We had good seats but then, there are no bad seats. CF is a one ring circus where all the seats are close to the ring. They do the show in the form of a 2 act play with lots of audience participation. (the clown brought one 8/9 yr old out for some plate spinning… The kid was a complete ham bone) Lots of laughs throughout with plenty of juggling, tumbling, and animal acts, and the usual mind bending aerial acts: The Flying Wallendas (no explanations needed I trust), The Flying Pages (trapeze, they were a scratch last year as one had taken a bad fall and broke her arm just weeks before). The topper for me was the Duo Ardeo of Andrew Adams & Helena Reynolds dancing on straps 20-25 feet in the air. Unbelievable. Too much fun.
Afterwards we went to a new Lebanese restaurant (Layla’s for the St Louisans) where the wife and I proceeded to eat way too much because the proportions were HUGE and the food was sooooooooooo good. For the record we got the Mezza for 2, falafels with 8 different appetizers. Oooooofffffff…. Got enough left over for at least 2 lunches.
Days like yesterday are way too few and too far between. I come from a large family (6 kids)(yes, Catholic) We fought like cats and dogs growing up but still were very close. My parents are gone now and us kids (and grand kids) have scattered over the years, not just in distance but in life styles. It is hard to get together with any of them and impossible to get us all in one place.
So yesterday was a blessing.
OzarkHillbilly
@HeartlandLiberal:
I am envious. I love greens (especially poke in the spring) but I can’t get my Mallorcan born wife to go anywhere near them. Sigh……
Check out the maps, temps will be up for you but moisture should be about normal. As for me? It just started raining again. And yes, there is such a thing as too much of a good thing.
OzarkHillbilly
@gelfling545:
Signs of the coming Apocalypse?
KimInGa
@TaMara (BHF):
OT, have you looked at the Mazda3? I just got a 2013 base model with a 5-spd manual. It says it gets 40 MPG highway, and it’s VERY fun to drive.
jnfr
In my experience, peppers are hard to sprout from seed unless they have a really warm soil. So you might try one of those seed-heating mats under your sprouting cups if your seed room isn’t really warm. They need more heat than tomatoes for sure.
I also have baby tomatoes growing! Makes me very happy. Roses, yarrow, sedums blooming, and the mint has started to grow so we’ll have mojitos soon. Summer is here!
woodyNYC
Its that thyme of year again:
http://www.juiceboxfx.com/garden/thyme_6-13.JPG
Here in Ulster Co NY we’ve been getting the right amount of rain for a weekend gardener like myself, and also it’s been a slow time-release spring so I am getting to see everything bloom. Fingers crossed. This year the deer decided they liked the Monarda — it only took them 12 years to acquire that taste. Oh well.
Also I feel the same uneasy feeling when I see young squash plants. Damn stink bugs.
Marvel
@woodyNYC: GOOD thymes!
Maude
Ramapo tomatoes are wonderful.
Transplanted the wave petunia to a 2″ larger pot yesterday. It looks happy this morning.
Betty Cracker
@jnfr: I think you’re right about the warmth factor. We’re in FL, so it’s generally warm enough here to start peppers early, but if it gets cool during the starting phase, hubby carts all the trays of cups into the house.
draftmama
What was wrong with the Indigo Rose? I planted and sold a lot of them – first time for me. Hope they aren’t a total loss.
maya
After 4 years of frost kills will finally have a bounty of Santa Rosa plums and nectarines. Only problem was birds, mainly blue jays, picking all the nectarines off. This year I’ve been hanging wind chimes and twurlies made from old AOL promo CDs tied together with fish line on available branches. Seems to be working so far. There’s always a breeze blowing through the orchard/garden. The twurlies even make me look around when the sun catches them. Also, 8 Valley Girl tomato plants started from last year’s seeds. Have been pinching back blooms because weather has been cool so far this summer but now letting them go as plants are 4′ in raised beds.
ThresherK
Sacreliege!
Here in CT the strawberries are late and it only makes them more longed-for.
burnspbesq
We’re going to be buried under a huge mound of vine-ripened tomatoes this week. Relocating the bee colony from the front hedge to a box in the backyard turns out to have been a very good move; we’re getting spectacular yields on tomato and blueberry plants and the nectarine tree.
joel hanes
We never tried Irish Spring.
Bars of plain soap to repel deer kinda work, until a rainy week melts them. After that, the deer won’t eat any part of the plant with soap on it. We used soap on young walnut trees for a couple years , but later we found that the powdered bad-egg yolk solids that are sold as a commercial deer repellent were much more effective, though they must be refreshed frequently. One applies them with a puff gun, like dusting roses; they stink of sulfur dioxide like rotten eggs.
I wonder if it would work to just put powdered sulfur in a couple ceramic cups a bit windward of the garden and set it alight at dusk.
We tried the commercially-available wolf urine, too, with no appreciable effect.
? Martin
We picked our first zucchini of the season just yesterday. Will eat it this evening.
Anne Laurie
@Munira:
Grobags?
Anne Laurie
@draftmama:
For me, at least, the plant’s productivity was fine but the flavor was “meh”. I grow maters for intense flavors, so they didn’t make the cut this year.
Your mileage may vary. For instance, I’ve tried several different Brandywine varieties, but none of them have impressed me or the Spousal Unit. But our Midwestern friends swear they’re the tastiest tomatoes in their gardens.
Nancy Irving
Have you tried Campari tomatoes?