June rainfall
- 3rd: 0.25"
- 9th: 0.5"
- 16th: 1.125"
- 27th: 0.25"
- 29th: 0.125"
- Total: 2.25"
Temperature
- nighttime range: 58-80°F (14.4-26.6°C)
- daytime range: 80-100°F (26.6-37.7°C)
Tasks
Things I'm trying to get done before picking and preserving take all my time.
Tying up tomato plants.
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| We must have 50+ cherry tomato volunteer plants. |
Mulching. I have a pretty good routine for this.
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| Afternoons are mulch gathering time because I can do it n the shade. |
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| Early the following morning. I work on mulching my garden beds. |
Ideally, I think mulching should be done right after a rain, to prevent the moisture from quickly evaporating out of the ground. With no rain, I water the bed thoroughly before putting down mulch.
After I finish with the beds, I need to re-do the wood chip mulch in the aisles, if I have time.
Harvesting, Preserving, and Eating
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| Strawberries, red raspberries, and mulberries |
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| Mulberry pancakes |
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| Multiplier onions |
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| Garlic |
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| Potatoes |
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| Volunteer lamb's quarter |
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| Lamb's quarter |
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| Lamb's quarter |
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The lettuce started to bolt earlier this month, but I find that Jericho doesn't get terribly bitter, even then. |
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| Landrace cucumbers and Matt's Wild Cherry tomatoes. |
What are landrace cucumbers? They are my experiment to develop a locally adapted yet genetically diverse variety of cucumber for my garden.
- This blog post explains what landrace gardening is.
- This blog post tells how to do it.
- Details about my cucumber experiment are at the bottom of this post.
So far, the cucumbers are growing very well and producing tasty
cucumbers.
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Lots of flowers hopefully means lots of cukes. That's good, because I need to can pickles & relish this year. |
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| 100% homegrown salad, even the salad dressing! (Recipe here.) |
Seed saving
So far, I've collected seed from:
- Collards
- Kale
- Edible pod peas
- Garlic (bulbils)
One thing I don't want to cross-pollinate, is my lettuce. I have three types of lettuce growing: Jericho
Romaine, a ruffly loose leaf type, and wild lettuce.
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The loose leaf lettuce bolted in early June. Jericho didn't start until a few weeks later. |
As mentioned above, the variety I grow is Jericho, which is the most
heat tolerant variety I've tried. I don't want it cross-pollinating
because I don't want to lose that. According to Joseph Lofthouse in
his Landrace Gardening: Food Security through Biodiversity and
Promiscuous Pollination, lettuce doesn't easily cross-pollinate. It still can, however, so to
keep my strain pure, I took measures to prevent it.
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| Jericho lettuce. Flower heads covered to prevent cross-pollination. |
I covered the flowering heads with
the mesh bags I got to keep the birds from eating all my
elderberries. Time will tell if this works!
Growing
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| Georgia Jet sweet potato vines and flower |
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| Slicing tomatoes. Dan got four plants from a flea market. |
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| Chicory |
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| Moonglow pears. |
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| Sweet potato winter squash in the foreground (speckled leaves). |
Late planting (replanting/transplanting).
Ordinarily, I try to have all my planting done by now. Summer for us is a season where the days are hot and rain can be elusive. The sooner I can get my plants established and mulched, the less watering I have to do. We did have to replant some things that made a poor showing: melons, corn, and sunflowers. I made a second planting of summer squash and cucumbers as well.
Also, I was late on getting my homegrown sweet potato slips in the ground. I finally finished that the other day. These were planted in the African keyhole garden.
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| I had two types to plant. My trusty Vardamans and some from a purple sweet potato that I originally got from Misfits Market. |
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| The kale is a lone survivor of our cold winter. |
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| I wanted to protect the newly planted slips from wilting, so I watered and covered with shade cloth. That helped a lot! |
Okay, that was long. But I had a lot I wanted to make note of. How about you? How does your garden grow?
Garden Notes: June 2022 © June 2022
