The Modern Victory Garden

HARVEST MONDAY

Each Monday, Daphne’s Dandelions hosts “Harvest Monday” where everyone submits links to their blog posts summarizing their harvest for the week.   It’s fun to see what people are producing from gardens in so many different regions.    Check it out and join in!                     

In addition to the chinese cabbage, kale, and lettuce that made it into the harvest tally this week, I also harvested several stalks of celery and some green onions, but there was not enough of them to make the minimum weight for inclusion in the harvest tally and it seems I did not manage to get those items into a photo either.   I have radishes ready for harvest and will probably start picking some of those this coming week.             

Harvest totals for the week of May 16th through May 22nd (rounded to the nearest ¼ pound).

• Chinese Cabbage 2.50 lbs
• Kale 0.75 lbs
• Lettuce 0.50 lbs

Total For Week 3.75 lbs

Total Year To Date 25.25 lbs                       

Eggs harvested this week – 35                        

THE GARDEN IN LATE MAY

The garden in late May rewards the gardener for all the initial work to get the plants into the ground and seeds planted.  It’s a pleasure to see things emerge or transform from spindly seedlings into robust plants.   I recently did a garden update that focused on the various greens, so I am going to largely ignore them today and provide a late May garden update on many of the other things growing in the garden right now.   Here’s a view of the back portion of the garden as seen from our back deck.  Notice our rhodies blooming in the background?    

The front bed has the bush beans (Royal Burgundy) and the corn patch (Precocious and Bodacious).   The second bed has sugar snap peas (Cascadia) growing with a slanted trellis support and underneath the trellis are turnips (Purple Top White Globe).   In that same bed are also carrots just newly emerged and too small to see (Mokum), some onions (sets), and 6 of the tomatoes which are growing under cover (4 Siletz and 2 Legend).   The lowest of the three beds has tomatoes in it also (Market Miracle, Defiant, and Sun Gold).                     

The bush beans are just emerged and getting their first true leaves.     

The corn patch (next to the beans) has not grown significant due to the cool weather we have been having, but is healthy and poised to take off as soon as the weather warms up just a bit.                

The sugar snap peas (Cascadia) have really gotten some growth on them the past two weeks.   They are still growing upright and have not leaned over to grab the support structure yet, but it won’t be much longer before that happens.   I recently thinned the turnips growing under the vertical support and they responded well to that and are getting a lot more top growth.         

The vertical grow bed at the lowest part of this back garden area has the spring planted spinach patch.   The spinach took forever to get going this year but have just recently started putting on a lot of good-sized leaves.             

Growing in containers against the back fence are my three artichoke plants.   These plants are really getting sturdy and tall.   I hope they produce buds for me this year.               

The tomatoes are doing good under the grow tunnel covers.   They would be happier if they were in warmer conditions, but for now they keep growing and are staying dry under the cover.   There is quite a bit of new growth on them despite the cooler temps.                 

The Sun Gold tomatoes have already set some fruit.   If you look at this picture carefully, you can see several tomato fruits in this cluster.      

In the greenhouse, the Lady Bell peppers are getting quite a lot of fruit set on them already.   I have five of these pepper plants growing there in large pots and they continue to flower and set fruit.           

Next to the greenhouse is the pea patch.   The peas have grown large enough to reach the first horizontal trellis and are latching on and growing on through.                     

Next to the pea patch is a bed that has onions, leeks, and garlic. I weeded and cultivated the garlic patch Sunday and I am amazed at how big the regular hard neck garlic (Music) is.   They are almost the same size as the Elephant garlic growing right next to them.              

In other beds I have lots of newly emerged carrots and beets, some zucchini, pumpkins, and butternut squash, and the potato patch has lots of potato plants emerging.   I also have two plantings of dill that are doing well.   Now if only we could get a significant warm up in temperatures and dry out just a bit - I am sure the garden would explode with growth.      

Is your late May garden rewarding you with lots of growth?               

Laura

kitsapfreedomgardener