June Garden Update

The garden was planted two weeks late and I definitely feel it during this June garden update. I'm not the only one who started late - with a late spring, it feels like all my gardening neighbors are in the same boat with theirs as well. I mean, it's the last week in June and the astilbe is just now blooming. Usually in NJ that blooms in late April/early May! Hopefully we still have a decent season though... there's still plenty of summer to go.

Tomatoes

The tomatoes are sturdy and healthy so far, a couple have blooms on them. Usually by now things are further along, but at the same time, my plants are looking healthier than they have in years past too. They are sturdier and thicker, less stringy than years past and so far the blight has held off  (though who knows for how long...).


Herbs, greens and things

My thyme and oregano are doing great, I'm always impressed by these plants for how well they transplant from bed to bed each year. The rosemary is still small - too small to harvest but hopefully will get bigger as the summer continues. The basil had a rough time early in the month, it was yellow and sickly, but now it's taken off with the change in weather.

The carrots and swiss chard have sprouted and are growing - the swiss chard is doing especially well. The pole beans are getting big and are aggressively climbing the string. On the other side of the support tower is the vine spinach, something I have no experience with. It's still small but I'm hopeful that it will take off soon - it's almost tall enough to start using the trellis.


Vines

The melon seeds sprouted and have just reached the trellis. There are a few early blooms though so I'm hopeful they will take off soon. The pumpkins and butternut squash have just exploded. With a little coaxing and twine, they are happily growing up the obelisk tower. There are lots of flowers too.

The cucumbers are a mixed bag right now, because Morgan attacked my cucumber sprouts. She's a digger by nature and loves to break into the garden (deer netting is no match for her). The garden "fence" is full of barricades until we can replace the outer fence with something sturdier. I think everything has recovered, but some are further along than others due to the setback.


Flowers

The zinnias are up and starting to grow - another couple weeks we should have flowers. The heirloom seed mix is tricky because I can't tell what's a flower and what's a weed! We should know soon enough though. The wildflower seeds never came up (bummer!) so I replaced them with more zinnias - they are just so easy to grow.

We had strawberries in early June. Not that many because Morgan loves strawberries and there's no stopping her - she rips out fencing and deer netting - dog will not be contained! Luckily we only have to contend with the birds for raspberries right now (and deer netting stops them). Next we'll have a few blueberries, though not as many as we should because Miss Morgan ripped a bunch of branches off the bushes while deciding the mosquito netting was a perfect chew toy. Our blueberry bushes are now wrapped in netting and surrounded by half a baby play pen. Morgan is tricky - she digs under wood fences, slides right under chain link, crushes chicken wire and plows right through deer netting. We've had to reinforce the "weak spots" in our garden fence with boards, stakes, baby playpen pieces and spare fence. What we really need to do is install some real fencing (like a 3 ft vinyl picket fence), but we don't want to do that until we overhaul the whole garden since the cedar is rotting - next year or even the year after (because also $$$$).