June 6, 2009 Overview

An update

It's been a while since my last post, I see! I haven't actually done much more planting until today. Tomatoes went in two weeks ago. Four plants each of four varieties, all of which are new to me: Aunt Ruby's (green), Cosmonaut Voltov, Jubilee, and Rose de Berne. I planted them in my favorite large three-sided cages, and set up a bean tripod on either side of the bed.


If the tomatoes outgrow the cages, I will run a bar between the two tripods and tie twine supports between each cage and the bar. As with last year, I will try to be assiduous in pinching off suckers - even with just two main vines per cage, I will likely have a complete tangle of tomatoes come late July! There are worse things in life.

Today I planted the first block of corn in the empty half of the pea bed. After the peas come out I will plant a second block. in the other half. Also transplanted two eggplant seedlings in amongst the lettuce and spinach, where they will provide a little shade to the greens later this month.

My 2009 Garden

Ground cherries!

My three ground cherry seedlings arrived today from Seed Savers Exchange in Iowa! They immediately went into the garden - I will get some photos tomorrow. I can't wait to harvest these!

More planting

I finally found healthy swiss chard seedlings yesterday evening at a local nursery, and this morning I transplanted them into the garden along with 13 leeks. Also sowed the first row of carrots and planted a few borrage seeds in the herb bed.

Transplanted two Romanesco broccoli seedlings and directly planted more Romanesco and "regular" (I assume Green Goliath but don't actually know!) broccoli seeds in the broccoli bed. I'm aiming for four Romanesco and two regular broccoli plants. Two years ago I got four harvests from each plant! I had one strong parsley seedling so I transplanted it into a gap in my other three plants that are already growing in the garden.

Yesterday and today I prepped several more beds - now only the tomato/bean bed needs to be turned over. I go over the entire bed once with a garden fork, then add compost and turn it all over again, removing the uprooted weeds as I go. Laborious, but good exercise!

Also today, I sowed beet seeds and planted shallot bulbs.