Monday Update 6.7.10

Today's post is the first in a series (oooo, ahhh!) of Monday updates about the garden. I'm starting this Monday with the hope that the weather is soon going to turn nice and warm and things are going to start growing gangbusters!

The tomatoes have really turned around and are doing quite well. All my tomatoes came from seed this year. They spent a little too much time in small containers in bad soil, so they looked pretty bad there for a while. They turned very purple, which I read means they need phosphorus. After a transplanting and a dose of plant food, they seem to be doing really well. I did most of my tomatoes this year in containers, but stuck a couple in the raised bed where the lettuce will undoubtedly be going to seed someday when it turns warm.

In the front raised bed, the garlic are starting to look pretty scraggly, which I'm hoping means the end is near. The Boyfriend's broccoli are huge and have a couple small heads on them. The spinach in between the garlic finally started growing and the onions are doing well. The poor peppers are just hanging out. I don't think they've grown at all since I planted them weeks ago. It's just been so cool and cloudy.

In the back raised bed, the peas have really taken off. They've grown a lot in the last week, but no flowers yet. In front of the peas (and to the side) are carrots, which are doing really well. On the second trellis my cucumbers died. I put some seeds in but they haven't come up yet. We might have to admit defeat and go buy a couple plants, but I'm going to give them a little longer. Our lettuce is still doing amazing in this cool, wet weather. We even harvested a head of Little Gem romaine-type lettuce this weekend and have a couple more ready. We're really enjoying all the fresh lettuce.

In the new bed along the fence, all sorts of stuff is happening! Everything is pretty small, so the picture is hard to see. But in the front of the picture is a row of corn, then a row of bush beans, then another row of corn. In the middle are a couple zucchini plants that we bought. Apollo and Kira tried to take one out, but it's miraculously hanging in there. Behind the zucchini plants I planted three melon seeds, and I just noticed this morning that one came up. Along the rock wall I planted some nasturtium seeds to bring us some pollinators, and along the fence we have sunflowers coming up. So exciting to have this giant new bed this year!

The new raised bed along the fence has basil (still very little) and two kinds of potatoes. The potatoes are really going crazy! Along the west side of the house we have our "berry patch." Sorry for the blurry photo. We've got strawberries in the square bed that came from the Boyfriend's strawberries up at the townhouse. We have two different kinds of strawberries in the strawberry pot. In the larger rectangular bed are our raspberries. I planted one last year then Erik gave us more this spring, so we've got all kinds in there. I built the trellis myself and successfully used the Boyfriend's power drill without breaking any bits--I was quite proud.

So everything really is coming along. I think if the sun decides to come out we might be on our way to having a pretty decent first attempt garden this year. If nothing else, it's sure fun to watch and we got a few salads out of it!