Flowering Horseradish
The garden is off to a really slow start this year. It’s mostly April’s fault. That month gave us very cold weather right up until the end, so nothing got planted. For the first couple weeks in May we were practically under water and it’s only been the last two weeks that we’ve been able to get a lot accomplished. Here’s some flowering horseradish. I’ve promised to take a little better care of my horseradish this year and it’s looking good.
Hoop Tunnel
I normally have a hoop tunnel up in April, but not this year. This is my seedbed in an open tunnel taken a week and a half ago. My starts were just put in, but as always, once inside the tunnel, they exhibited explosive growth. I’ve removed the plastic and hoops as cold nights are finally behind us. Tomatoes are out to their final home. The peppers, various coles, melons and other veggies will be moving this week.
Potato Trenches
Potatoes, which I normally plant in late April, didn’t get in until mid-May, but they’ll do fine. The spuds are planted in the bottom of the trenches pictured here.
Potato Sprouts
Here are some sprouting potatoes. I’ll hill up the plants continuously as they grow. I only started this method two years ago, but it seems to be the easiest approach to hilling potatoes using open raised beds.
Garlic and Brambleberries
Garlic, which was planted November, is doing great. Next to it is a bed of raspberries with a few thornless blackberries in the front. I’m using the valleys in the garlic bed as a holding bed for leeks, which I’ll let get quite a bit larger before I transplant them to some deep holes. I’ve got some greens started on the outside slopes and I’ll be putting in some lettuces here, too.
Peas
Most of my peas sprouted well, but I had some spotty germination with several varieties. I’ve re-seeded, but now it’s so hot, I don’t think we’ll get the pea harvest we are used to.
Sweet Potato Bed
Sweet Potato Start
I’m getting pretty good at growing sweet potatoes and this year’s starts are the best looking I’ve ever grown. I hope we get some big ones in October.
Shallots and Comfrey
I’ve got two beds of sweet corn planted and a bed of onions, but I still have a long way to go to get my first round of planting complete. I’ve got nothing new planted in the north beds, but here is a picture of some shallots I planted in November, and a great stand of Russian Comfrey, which I’ll chop down to use in the compost pile. It will grow right back. It’s a really cool plant.
So even though we are off to a slow start, I’m hoping by mid-June, we’ll be all caught up, or at least as much as we can be. It’s a lot of work maintaining a garden.