Garden Update–All this rain has been good for something…

We have had a relatively coolish spring, and May has been record tying/breaking rainy. I have struggled to keep up with the yardwork between raindrops–our yard has looked like a hayfield at times. BUT, the rain has also been good for the gardens.

We’ll start out by the garden shed. This is the asparagus that I planted back in late March. It is doing really well. We have a couple more years of letting it go to seed before we can harvest anything. At least it’s kind of pretty. Only one plant has seeds on it. Does anyone know why that might be?

This is one of our blueberry bushes that we planted in the fall of 2023. I have 2 of this variety and 2 of another variety. This variety (and I don’t know what it is) is much more productive. It is absolutely loaded and the berries are huge, and they still have weeks to go.

I have white potatoes planted in one of the places where I normally plant sweet potatoes, but I am growing more sweet potato slips here while I wait for the white potatoes to finish. We have a really long growing season here, so I have plenty of time for the sweet potatoes to mature. I also have this tray of zinnias to plant there. I put zinnias in the sweet potato beds because they seem to keep the deer at bay–deer don’t like anything with fuzzy leaves.

I am growing more yellow squash this year than in years past–Slik Pik from Johnny’s Selected Seeds is the variety. They are a straight neck yellow squash which is our favorite. I am growing them up garden stakes in hopes of outsmarting squash bugs and vine borers. I have also been using an organic insecticide on the stem. These were some of the plants that I started in the cold frame that my husband built me as a Christmas present. It gave them a great start. When I first transplanted them they were a little puny, but I put some organic fertilizer on them and they have really taken off.

I didn’t start my pepper plants from seed because I don’t have great luck with that, but I did find a 6 pack of poblano pepper plants (also called Ancho peppers). I have had trouble finding them in the past, so I was happy to find a six pack. I plant these because I really enjoy the flavor of them and the mild heat. I use them for my White Lightning chili beans. These benefitted from a dose of fertilizer too. They have grown a LOT since I planted them and are starting to flower. They are ahead of where they typically are at this point in the season.

I started a bunch of grape tomato plants, but gave most of them away. I kept two for myself, and that’s plenty because they are INCREDIBLY productive. I planted them up here behind the shed because the plant supports I have in the tubs work better for this indeterminate plant.

I still have a LOT of lettuce growing. This is just some of what we have. The ends of the leaves of these have been going slightly brown and I don’t know what is causing that. I stuck a few cucumber plants in the second tub where I had harvested some lettuce. I am only growing English/Japanese/Turkish type cucumbers this year because I am not planning to make pickles, and pickling cucumbers can be bitter. I have more on the south side of the house because this type is not as productive as the pickling or slicing cucumbers. I will be planting butternut squash in the 1st tub when I harvest the rest of this lettuce.

We have one more perennial plant at the garden shed and boy has it gone CRAZY this spring. The rhubarb that we planted in the fall of 2023 died on the east side of the shed, but it loves its spot on the west side. Just look at it.

Now, let’s take a look at the sweet potatoes. The deer and the bunnies have been munching on my sweet potato plants, so they aren’t making much progress. I also think that I need to fertilize them some because they should be growing faster. I started zinnia plants to put here and you can also see the dill that has reseeded itself. I will sprinkle more dill seeds here once the sweet potatoes and zinnias get a little bigger.

I had some white potatoes in the house that had started to sprout back in March, so I stuck them in the ground. We were predicted to get a late (really) cold spell, so I covered the plants with dirt, because they can’t handle below freezing temps. That move saved the potatoes, but has made the bed kind of a mess with holes and high places. So, when I harvest the white potatoes, I will likely disrupt most of the zinnias and dill plants when I smooth everything back out, which is why I have the zinnia plants started. I will probably make the switch in the next couple of weeks if it ever dries out enough to do so. Last year I harvested about 6 lbs of potatoes from the few plants I stuck in one of the tubs behind the garden shed, so I am eager to see how I do this year.

Now we’re going to look at the perennial bed on the north side of the house. Last fall, we ripped out the oakleaf hydrangea because it didn’t have any manners. I replaced it with some large hostas (at least they WILL be large, eventually). I also replaced some of the heuchera plants that had gotten pushed out. This shady garden contains tiarella (foamflower, a ground cover), hellebores (lenten rose), clematis vines, astilbe (false spirea) of various types, hostas of various types, heuchera, bleeding heart, pink peonies, and a curly filbert at the end.

Now, we’re headed to the herb garden which is really overstuffed with plants. I have had to stake my rosemary because it was falling over everything. My oregano really needs to be trimmed and some of it pulled because it is TAKING over. I haven’t planted cilantro in years and I will let these flowers form seeds and let them fall before I pull up these plants (these grew ALL winter, even through the terrible cold we had.) I have pulled the flowers off the chives once, and I need to do it again, because it reseeds aggressively. I really need to dig some up because this is way too many chives for us. I am growing some parsley from seed and I planted a curly variety too. I had to move the thyme to between the parsley and the chives because the rosemary had it completely covered. (I really thought it had died, but when I staked up the rosemary, I discovered that it was just buried under rosemary branches.)

Here’s a view from the opposite side. I just planted a sage plant and a tarragon plant. They are still tiny. The sage plant was from last year so it was super root bound. I had to do some major surgery on it to free the roots before I planted it. I don’t use a lot of tarragon, but it’s delicious in my marinated green beans. I have planted basil seeds in the pot, but they haven’t sprouted–they love hot weather and we haven’t had much of that.

I love this little vignette. It reminds me of Europe somehow. I had to order new coir liners for my hayrack planters this year, and they look so much better. (The hayrack planters and liners are from Kinsman Gardens. Their stuff is excellent quality and I have used most of their various types of plant supports.) I plant red million bells in these baskets pretty much every year because I love the combination of the limewashed brick, dark door, black light fixture, and red flowers. I can see this from my kitchen window and hummingbirds love to visit these little flowers.

Now we going to the southwest corner of the house. I have given amaryllis to people as Christmas presents for years (and people have given them back to me), and I bought some waxed bulbs for our house just before Christmas. So I had a bunch of amaryllis in the house that I needed to do something with, so I planted them here close to the house to protect them over the winter. They seem to really like it.

I sprinkled dill seeds in this area too, not that I need more dill as you saw from the photos of the sweet potatoes and the white potatoes. I have PLENTY. I like to use dill in flower arrangements, or even alone. It’s really stunning when it flowers.

Just behind the dill you can see my two galvanized trash cans that we used to store scratch grain, and chicken feed in at the farm. The bottoms have rusted out, so I have repurposed them for basil.

Now we have arrived at the south side of the house. A lot to see here. If you saw my post this spring, you know that I transplanted 61 romaine lettuce seedlings here. I still have a bunch left to harvest. As I have harvested the lettuce, I have stuck Cherokee Purple tomato plants in the ground. To plant tomatoes, I use a post hole digger and dig as deep a hole as possible, and I plant the tomato. (I put fertilizer in with the plant.) The tomato plant will put out roots anywhere it makes contact with the soil. This method ensures that you get a plant with a robust root system which allows the plant to thrive during our long hot summers, which can be dry at times. I like Cherokee Purple because they have good flavor and they are more productive than some other heritage breeds which taste better, but only produce a few tomatoes–I’m looking at you German Queen.

This is my plant nursery. I have a bunch of Cherokee Purple tomato plants, a couple butternut squash, and the zinnias and marigolds.

On the other side of the HVAC unit, I have tomatoes, yellow squash, butternut squash, and spinach. The spinach has been a slow-grower, but some of it is ready to pick. This bed is doing so much better than it has in years past because of the giant pruning job my husband did on the oak tree that is just south of this area.

Where the bed on the south side of the house narrows down, I have planted more cucumbers. Again, these are the seedless varieties. I planted so many because they didn’t produce much last year, until late in the season. This year they are growing really well and already have baby cucumbers on them. I am hopeful that I will be harvesting some by the middle of June. They are also happier that the oak tree was pruned so hard. They are climbing their supports well. I have to clip them to it, or weave them in between the grids every other day or so. These needed a dose of fertilizer after I transplanted them. I have stuck some marigolds between the plants that came up as volunteers from the marigolds last year.

The cutting garden is just on the other side of the retaining wall from the cucumbers and it’s kind of a jungle. The gladiolus are doing well and sending up flower stalks.

I planted Nigella a couple years ago and it has reseeded this bed. I love the seed pods on these for flower arrangements. They have a Dr. Seuss quality about them.

I have lunaria in the woods behind the house, but I also have some here. I think that it likes the woods better, but this is an established plant with loads of seed pods. This is another plant I like to use in flower arrangements, but also to dry for wreaths and to use as permanent arrangements in the house. They remind me of my grandmother who had a huge pitcher full of dried lunaria on a chest by her front door.

The dahlias and liatris (gayfeather/blazing star) are both doing well. The liatris has reseeded, so there are a bunch of babies all over this bed. If you aren’t familiar with this flower, it looks kind of like a purple cattail. Great accent plant, and native to this area. I harvested the seeds last year and planted them by the barn too, along with other native plants.

So that’s the tour of the gardens, but I have one more thing to share. When my husband had the barn built, the plan was to move the wood racks that we erected in the woodshed addition to the garden shed up to the barn. We did that a couple weeks ago. (What a job–moving all the wood out, and then taking the racks down and then rebuilding them up in the barn and then putting all the wood away. Phew, terrible.) But now, the wood shed is empty and my husband is going to make this into a potting shed for me this fall. We’re putting it off to the fall because I am pretty much finished with starting seedlings, etc. for the season and it is brutally hot in the shed at this time of year.

While it was empty, I went ahead and painted the walls. I mixed up all the various solid acrylic stains we had on hand plus some white stain that I bought and it turned into the blue gray color which is close to the color of the organization system I plan to use to hold all my stuff. The stuff you see in the shed is counter top material (like Corian) that my husband salvaged from work. It’s not in perfect condition, but will work great for a potting shed work bench and there’s plenty of it to put along the entire back wall. What is especially nice about this product is that you can cut it with a saw, unlike a natural or manufactured stone product. He’s going to build it in a way that doesn’t have legs that sit on the floor–this area is hard to leaf blow and sweep because of all the inside corners. (You should have seen the shovels full of dirt and debris I swept up after the wood rack was gone.) There are a bunch of wasps nests that will need to be removed before I move in. Anyway, more on this project in the fall.

I hope that your late spring gardening is going well.