Every couple of days or so for the past three weeks I have been lugging out the garden hose and moving the sprinkler around my garden. So I have been overjoyed the past several days by all the rain we have been getting. It actually gave me the chance to throw down some fertilizer.
But with the rain, the weeds are taking over. I planted cumin for the first time this year, and it is a late emerging annual herb. It is just now over 1 inch tall, after the rain, but the weeds around it are much taller. Isn't it amazing how fast they can get away from you?
Also new in my garden this year is cilantro. I am trying to get to where I am growing pretty much everything I would ever need in the kitchen. If I manage to actually get the cumin to the point where I can grind the seeds, I will have both my curry mix and my Mexican seasoning mix.
The corn is doing very nicely this year. I have companion planted it with beans. I have green beans on one side of the corn, and pinto beans on the other. I actually planted one of the rows in black beans, but those seeds are extremely expensive. What I will probably do is simply collect all those beans for seeds for next year, and just use the pinto beans in my chili and my salsa this summer.
The tomato vines are not doing so well. They are only about a foot tall, but the leaves at the top are curling. I also lost an entire branch from my peach tree. Both of these are near areas where hubby Steve sprayed Roundup to kill grass growing along the driveway. As tomatoes are extremely sensitive to Roundup, I kind of think maybe hubby poisoned my plants. Not going to say anything to him about it though, because if that is what caused it the plants will come out of it in a few weeks. I gave them a good dose of Miracle-Gro, and that should perk them up a bit. Just hope he doesn't spray near the peach tree again, because I am very close to losing that little guy.
Having fruit in a vegetable garden is something I have been moving toward for several years and finally have accomplished. Fruit trees are, of course, not something you want around sun-loving veggies. However, the peach tree is a super dwarf variety, the grapes pretty much keep to themselves on the trellis, and the strawberries are confined to their three-tiered frame, so everybody seems to be getting along just fine.
The only thing I am going to have to replant are the peppers. We had this same problem last year with Scott's peppers. The seeds just did not sprout. We ended up planting three times before anything sprouted. As soon as it is dry enough for me to go out and get the weeds out of the veggies, I am just going to spade up that row and replant them.
Other than that, everything is up and growing well. I am experimenting with onions this year. I have my usual rows planted with sets, but I read somewhere the onions will grow bigger and keep better if you plant them from seeds instead of sets. So I have a raised bed with onions planted from seeds. They are cute little fellers, look like very fine grass when they sprout, I almost missed them. But they are growing fast, so I will let you know if they actually are bigger in the end.
I also had to spray for bugs. Of course, I would have sprayed the corn and tomatoes anyway; you just can't get anything from those two vegetables in this climate if you don't start spraying early and keep at it. But I am already having a problem with aphids, and it is very early for that. I am also seeing signs of stink bug damage on my bean plants. This might just be an early sign of a bad critter year.
The Farmer's Almanac says we are going to have a wet and warm summer, so I guess that means I need to plan on being outside on the old granny gardening stool more days than not for the foreseeable future. If you drive by the Lendennie homestead and see me out in the garden in my big straw hat, honk and wave me a howdy.
plen@rittermail.com