June Garden Update

I can’t believe it’s the end of June in the garden already. We had a late start to the year, so things feel a bit behind, but I’m sure they will catch up before I know it. The weeds in the garden paths certainly have...

Tomatoes
The tomatoes are growing steadily, the early types started blooming a couple of weeks ago and the others are just starting to bloom now. We've had so much rain that some of my heirlooms are getting a little bit of black spotted mildew already, which really stinks but hopefully this wet-humid weather cycle we're stuck in will change soon.

Herbs, Lettuce, Carrots, Peas, Beans, etc.
This bed has been doing very well, we've been enjoying fresh herbs and lettuce for a month now. The peas are just starting to come in this week (which is funny since it's July next week!), but it's been so hot I think the vines are going to wilt soon and my heat-tolerant romaine (lettuce) is finally starting to bolt. We've enjoyed the peas and lettuce in salads though! The green bean vines are growing, the single strip of carrots I planted also seem happy.

Flowers
The flower bed is always the slowest to get going, but once things get a little bigger it goes crazy. One of my new dahlias didn't come up (oh well), but hopefully the others will make up for it. The zinnias are growing steadily and the one giant sunflower on the end (that I planted just for fun - it was pretty cool last year!) is also getting bigger.

Vines
This bed is doing great so far! The cucumbers are growing steadily up the trellis and are just starting to get some flowers. The squash and zucchini vines are so far still alive (we'll see how it goes) and I have a few tiny squash starting to appear. On the end (closest to the camera) are the musk melon vines with lots of blooms. So far starting them early indoors seems to have really helped - they are SO much bigger than they were last year and they are blooming much earlier. Hopefully this is the solution for getting more melons out of the growing season - when I've sowed the seeds directly into the bed in years past, they are just so slow to get going that we don't see a big yield before fall.

Overall I think the garden is doing very well despite the humid wet weather - hopefully we have more sun in our future to dry things out a bit.

Fruits, Pots and Perennials
Elsewhere in the yard we are definitely enjoying our spring crops. We had a very good yield of strawberries this year (not quite as good as last year because of the wet weather, but still very good) and just as those started the fade, the raspberries are coming in now. The harsh winter nipped back more of our raspberry canes than usual, and I'm fighting with the birds over the fruit, but we're still getting a nice handful of berries each day. The blackberries will be coming in soon after in July.

The fig trees (pictured above) are coming back thicker than ever. They didn't die off completely to the ground this year but they definitely went down quite a bit. We'll see how the harvest goes this summer. The blueberry bushes didn't flower this year, so we'll have to be patient and hope that next year is the year! We also can't harvest the rhubarb this year since the critters ate most of it including the roots - I need to give it time to heal and reestablish itself. The asparagus we planted this year will also take a few years before we can harvest while it establishes itself.

In the pots, my lemon and lime tree are doing much better now that they are outside. The wasps and lady bugs are keeping the aphids in check and the plants are happy in the heat and sunshine. Both are sprouting new leaves, the old leaves are healing and turning green again, both are covered in new blooms and tiny lemons and limes. My one pepper in my one pot is doing well (not pictured), we've had a few blooms and a couple tiny peppers have started growing.