The Modern Victory Garden

The garden in late May is truly something miraculous and exciting. The flush of new growth is intoxicating and the hint of harvests to come is tantalizing.  I find myself drawn to the garden every moment that I am not otherwise occupied.                        

Early this morning before getting ready for work, I did my usual garden "walk about" to open up the greenhouse for the day and check on everything. It's just an excuse really - to sip my coffee while enjoying a quick stroll through the various garden bed areas.  It was still somewhat dark because of the early hour and because of the heavy cloud cover. We had a very strong rainstorm move through the previous evening and the remnants of the clouds were still overhead.  The heavy rains had left the garden beds very well soaked. There is something about rain that irrigation watering just cannot match.  It seems like there is a significant increase in the vitality of plants after a heavy rain that just never occurs after a manual watering.  I wonder if any of you have ever noticed this?                                 

While out this morning, I took a few pictures. First, let me share with you how the broccoli, kohlrabi, and early cabbages are doing.  Here's the first bed that was planted up with these cole crops.        

The plants towards the front of the photo are the "Ruby Ball" cabbages. Behind them are the kohlrabi and then the first round of broccoli. This crop of broccoli are starting to develop the main head.                       

The second crop of broccoli is in another garden bed close by - and is virtually caught up with the earlier planting.                                                

The potatoes are zooming along and I am having to back fill soil into the trenches almost daily. The storage onions are suddenly getting a lot of top growth to them as well.                            

Remember the overwintered spinach that I decided to allow to go to seed for seed saving purposes? Well take a look at the seed stalks it is sending up! I am hoping to collect enough seed for both the fall planting and next spring's planting as well.                        

Finally, I want to show you how the main pea patch is doing and give you a status report on the horizontal pea trellis support I am trying for the first time this year. If you recall the trellis system and patch looked like this after I did the initial planting up on March 14th.                   

The peas took quite a while to germinate but now (approximately two months later) this is how the patch is doing!                   

If you look closely at this photo you can see two volunteers in that bed - a lettuce plant, and a potato plant. The peas (and volunteer plants!) are all thriving. When I put the horizontal trellis in place, I wondered if I really needed the second tier - but these plants are already up to the second level and grabbing hold.                                                                                            

These will start blooming and producing very soon.              

Looking ahead to the weekend, we have a string of sunny and warm days in the forecast and I am anxious to spend quality time in the late May garden.