Early June Garden Update

Mother Nature this year has made gardening a bit of a challenge. It started off with an unusually late spring, getting everything off to a late start. Then we’ve had extreme cold and extreme heat, from freezing cold days with highs in the low 50s to blistering heat with highs in the upper 90s (like this weekend - yuck). One minute it’s too cold for my summer heat-loving plants, then it’s way too hot for my spring plants that are still growing.

Flowerbed:
My two remaining dahlia bulbs have sprouted, the snapdragons from the nursery are doing well. I’m concerned about my zinnias - nothing has sprouted yet. I can’t tell if it’s the weather, bad seeds, or if something came through and ate all my seeds. If I don’t see anything in another week, I’m going to try again with a different packet.

Peas/Beans/Etc. Bed:
This bed is a mixed bag. No lettuce sprouts, no green beans. The weather? The seeds? Critter that possibly ate the zinnia seeds too?

On the bright side, the pea vines are finally producing peas, the rainbow swiss chard is growing nicely, and my garlic has sprouted. The transplanted herbs are happy and so is the basil from the nursery.

Tomatoes:
The tomatoes from the nursery are all doing great, growing happily and steadily with some blooms. I put tomato spikes in the soil next to each plant, so they are well fertilized. I even have my first tomato set.

Vines:
The cucumbers, yellow squash and zucchini have all sprouted nicely. The melon only has one little sprout, so I am going to have to add more seeds in hopes we get a couple more. I still need to put up the trellises, but luckily the plants are still small.

So overall, the garden doing okay. It's too late for the lettuce, but I put in some new seeds for the beans, melon and zinnias. Hopefully the new ones will sprout. I think the weather is partially to blame, since all these are all summer-heat-loving veggies and the temperatures have swung all over the place. We’ll see.

Elsewhere in the yard, the fig tree has come back (it survived the winter! Hooray!). The strawberry plants are loaded with fruit waiting to ripen. The new blueberry bushes are happy and full of leaves. The raspberry bushes just set with summer fruit, the blackberry bush is going to bloom soon. My citrus trees have a few small fruits and are suddenly covered with tiny flower buds again. The pepper plants in the patio pots are small but already blooming.