Garden Notes: June 2022

Oh my. The month has flown by. I need to get my June garden post up before July gets here!

 

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.

We must have 50+ cherry tomato volunteer plants. 

Mulching. I have a pretty good routine for this.

Afternoons are mulch gathering time because I can do it n the shade.

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

Strawberries, red raspberries, and mulberries

Mulberry pancakes

Multiplier onions

Garlic

Potatoes

Volunteer lamb's quarter

Lamb's quarter

Lamb's quarter

The lettuce started to bolt earlier this month, but I
find that Jericho doesn't get terribly bitter, even then.

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.

Lots of flowers hopefully means lots of cukes. That's
good, because I need to can pickles & relish this year.

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. 

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.

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

Georgia Jet sweet potato vines and flower

Slicing tomatoes. Dan got four plants from a flea market.

Chicory

Moonglow pears. 

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.

I had two types to plant. My trusty Vardamans and some from
a purple sweet potato that I originally got from Misfits Market.

The kale is a lone survivor of our cold winter.

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

by Leigh at http://www.5acresandadream.com

The Garden at the End of June

It's hard to believe that June is almost behind us.  The fall and winter garden is finishing, and my summer garden is growing well. Challenges have been typically seasonal, with long hot stretches of no rain which means I've been focusing on mulching and watering if needed.

Winter & Early Spring Garden Remnants

Most of my multiplier onions have been harvested.

Celery flowers on the surviving celery base I rooted and planted.

My heat resistant Jericho lettuce is finally bolting, except for the little bit in the keyhole garden.

The romaine lettuce on the right is Jericho. The
others are bolting. All grown from saved seed.

Perennials

I've tried to steer clear of planting perennials in my veggie garden, but these raspberries picked this spot so I've accommodated them! 

Cattle panel raspberry trellis

I've tried for years to grow raspberries, but have had poor success. When they showed up at the end of one of my garden beds, I said 'okay!'

It hasn't been a bumper crop, but I've gotten
some to enjoy on my morning granola!

This shot was taken earlier this month, before I cut the lettuce
for salads. Also in the strawberry bed are violets and an olla.

Little pots for rooting strawberry runners.

For diligent watering, I'm rewarded with
another handful of berries here and there.

Summer Garden

Where should I start? How about tomatoes?

I've had Matt's Wild Cherry Tomatoes volunteer
everywhere. They've been the first to ripen.

My standard varieties are still green. Here they
are with Swiss chard in the foreground.

On the other side of the row is a volunteer squash. I have no idea
what kind. The only flowers so far are male, so bah humbug.

This one is another volunteer on the other side of the garden.
It's probably cushaw, which has always done well for me.

Sweet potato squash is a new variety for me. So far,
so good, except it attracts the most squash beetles.

I was able to obtain some landrace winter squash, so I planted it too.

It started off well, but one of the plants seemed to suffer during our
hot dry spell. I composted and watered it, and new leaves are greener.

I planted melon in one of the hoop house beds. First I tried
Green Nutmeg which didn't show. Then Hale's Best, which did.

In the same bed, I planted something new to me, Malabar
red-stemmed spinach. It's a vining summer type of spinach.

Sweet potato bed with olla and volunteer tomato.

Cherokee flour corn, an heirloom from Virginia, with more volunteer
cherry toms. The sweet potato squash is at the far end of the right bed.

I planted cornfield pole beans in the front porch trellis bed. The cornfield variety don't mind some shade, so they were a good choice for a spot that only gets afternoon sun.

Also in the picture are more volunteer Matt's
wild cherry toms, yarrow, 4 o'clocks, and olla.

Foraging

Lambs quarter has been beautiful and abundant this year.

It's a favorite green, and I've canned more than a dozen pints.

Landrace Experiment

I read Joseph Lofthouse's Landrace Gardening a little too late for most things, so this year, I'm just focusing on landrace cucumbers.

Two varieties of cucumber. You can also see bolting
Jericho lettuce, dried oats, and a volunteer turnip.

Step two in creating landrace vegetables (see all the steps here) is to "plant two or three varieties close together to encourage cross-pollination. Can be heirloom, open-pollinated, or F1 hybrid seed." I had seed from three varieties of cucumber that have done well for me in past years, so I planted them all in the same row: Dar, Straight Eight, and Boston Pickling. Next year, we'll see what we get.

Lots of photos! Hopefully, I didn't go over-board. How about you? How does your garden grow at the end of June?

The Garden at the End of June © June 2021

by Leigh at http://www.5acresandadream.com

May Garden = Slow Garden

Who can relate?!

One of the things I love about blogging is that it's an excellent way to document things over the years. Like my garden. In looking back over my May gardens in years past, I can definitely say we had a slow start. But then, we had  cooler spring than usual. We had a late last frost, and even though it warmed up a bit after that, we dipped back into cooler temps this month. So much so that we actually lit a fire one evening because the house was so chilly! We've never had a fire in May before!

On the other hand, that kept my cool weather veggies have been happy. 

Snowpeas. Not a bumper crop,

so these usually go into salads. 

Jericho lettuce growing happily with
snow peas, dandelions, and violets.

Stored grocery store potatoes sprouted like crazy.

I planted some in the garden and some in large containers.

Sweet Lorane fava beans.

Seed patch of heirloom wheat in early May.

Same patch in late May.

Still to harvest:

Multiplier (potato) onion blooming.

Also in the onion bed:

Last year I bought and dehydrated a bunch of celery. I planted
the ends of the bunches as an experiment. This one made it.

Of summer veggies, almost thing has been slow to show and grow. First from the chilly temps, now from heat and no rain. But my tomatoes are doing well!

Tomatoes are blooming.

Most of my frost bitten tomatoes survived; I only lost a few. To fill in the gaps, I planted the last of the seed directly in the ground. I have a long enough growing season to do that. 

Direct seeded baby tomato plant

Also in that bed are marigolds, Swiss chard, and one sweet basil. 

Then there's corn, another slow starter. I think because the soil was cold the first planting didn't do well. I've replanted all the bare spots now that it's warmed up.

Cherokee flour corn.

In the same bed, 

"Sweet potato" winter squash.

Speaking of sweet potatoes, my slips arrived the other day and are now planted. My own slip growing hasn't worked out very well, although there's still a chance.

These are Virginia Baker sweet potatoes
from Southern Exposure Seed Exchange.

I've been trying for slips since mid-April!
These are my tried-and-true Vardamans.

I could probably take a bazillion photos of the garden because I try to appreciate everything I see. 

Little bits of color from volunteer turnips, collards, and radishes.

Anyway, that's it for May. How about you? Hopefully, June will bring the right amount of rain and our gardens will thrive.

May Garden = Slow Garden © May 2021

by Leigh at http://www.5acresandadream.com