End of June Notes

I picked the first blueberries on June 27 - twelve of them. The bushes are loaded with berries and the ones I picked were larger than last year. We have watered the blueberries several times (something we decided to do after last year's crop of smallish berries) and there has been plenty of rain this year. The netting is in place and birds have not gotten in yet. I expect we will exceed last year's harvest of 20 pounds, which also started on June 27th.

The two squash plants are getting quite large and have some tiny squashes on them. I have sprayed kaolin clay on the cheesecloth that surrounds the stems again. We didn't regularly get squash last year until mid-July.

The two cucumber plants are starting up the netting (mostly). I am using kaolin clay spray on them but don't know exactly how much of the plant should be sprayed. I don't know whether the beetles only infect through the original stem or anywhere in the plant. The radishes that I planted around the cukes are ready to be harvested.

We have picked a lot of rhubarb this year. We don't really need five plants and I plan to eliminate two of the green rhubarb in the fall.

The cherries are ripening but there are not very many and the robins and cat birds are helping harvest them.

The concord grapes, despite my pruning, are growing in abundance. Some of the bunches have grapes about the size of peas. It seems the bunches that are developing the best are hanging down the sides of the trellis and the ones that are not developing well are on top of the trellis. But there might be other factors at play - shade, age of wood they are growing on.

Raspberries are forming berries. Janet has found a few Japanese beetles in the yard. We usually begin to see them around July 4th.

Garlic is drying and more scapes were harvested. I planted 102 regular and 16 elephant garlic on October 10th. Harvest should be around July 10th and the plants seem to be on schedule for that.

The peppers are about 18' high. All four varieties have buds and the chocolate and garden sunshine plants have small peppers on them.

The leeks are okay.

Some of the blackberries are flowering but much of last year's growth did not survive the winter so there will not be a large harvest.

The dill is about to flower. We don't plant dill anymore since it is not necessary. It comes up all over the garden. While we use some dill, it is mainly there for black swallow butterflies.

The first kale (started indoors on March 16th) has been producing good helpings of kale for the past two weeks. The kale and collards seeded on June 9th are about ready to transplant, once I find space. The kale and collards I started from seed earlier (I didn't record when) have been transplanted. The kale looks very good and should be ready to begin harvesting in another week. The collards are biding their time. They are under the pear tree, not the best location, and some have been chewed off (and left) by something. I think that next year I will do what I planned this year and not plant collards until later. I will grow more kale in its place since the kale seems to do better. I planted Nero, rainbow, and winterbor. [The dinosaur I started didn't germinate.] As best I can tell from Google, Nero is what I thought was lacinato (and I think it is called Nero lacinato), rainbow has the purple stems (and I don't have very much of it) and winterbor is the crinkly kale. My choice would be the Nero kale with some of the rainbow.

Parsley has been growing well and Janet has been harvesting some of it for pesto and other parsley dishes.

The tomatoes are doing very well this year. I haven't looked carefully but I haven't noticed any browning of the leaves. The plants are mulched with OCRRA compost and I will add more in the next day or so. Some of the tomatoes are tennis ball size but none of them are turning color yet. Although I check them every few days some plants manage to sneak second main stems past me.

Lettuce is abundant from the indoor plantings and two outdoor plantings. My favorite by far is the merlot lettuce - very dark red and leafy. The earlier plantings are bolting and some have been removed. I planted more lettuce than we can eat, especially without tomatoes to go with it. I started more merlot lettuce a couple of days ago.

The beets are growing but not big enough to harvest yet. I doubt that they have been properly thinned.
Scallions - some are ready for us - the few that were started indoors. The ones started outdoors have been mostly transplanted but some are still awaiting transplanting. They are in a difficult far corner of the garden to get to.

The peas are now producing but they were planted much too thinly and never produce enough to justify the space allotted to them. Kale and collards will soon be there.

Ground cherries - I don't plant them any more. They come up so easily on their own that I can move them to where I want them. But they are slow this year, partly because I transplanted anise hyssop thinking they were ground cherries, until I later noticed that the leaves smelled like licorice.

The basil is growing well and needs to be harvested again.

Pole beans are growing nicely up the trellis and into the pear tree but there is no sign of flowers yet.

I harvested some of the fava beans. Twenty-four ounces of pods resulted in 4 ounces of useable beans. Not a great ratio. They also need support or the plants topple over. The experiment this year is to see if, after the first harvest, the plants will grow back from the base. If not, or maybe even if they do, fava beans will be out of the mix next year. Like peas, the harvest doesn't justify the space.