Garden Update for June the 22nd

It’s generally right about now, just after the first day of summer that my garden begins to get a little out of control. I have vegetables growing all over the place, in between the ever persistent weeds that always seem to grow faster than anything else. But, this year, I have decided not to get up tight about it and have elected to tolerate a less than perfect garden.

This year I’ve had some successes and some not so great successes to report on. One big plus has been the onion sets I planted in the early spring. They have done marvelous and are near their time of harvest. They are of a white onion variety and I plan to use every bit of them up in salads and on hamburgers as the season progresses.

Another real winner was the romaine lettuce. I’ve been able to harvest some continuously right from the first of the year via the cold frames that were sown with seed the previous fall. Now in the heat of summer, I will be attempting to grow more under a shade cloth. That attempt will be presented in a future video on YouTube.

Now, turning to the not so good. That would be the tomatoes. My eight plants have may one or two little tomatoes on them at this time. I’m not sure what I’m doing wrong either. I have some in pots and some in the ground. Perhaps it is the soil or maybe, more likely, the gardener that is at fault. Also, the potatoes were an overall failure due to an ant invasion that basically killed the above ground vegetation. I tore out this area earlier today and was surprised to find eight potatoes that look pretty decent. I’ll report further on these in a later report.

My peppers and crop of dried beans are in the fair to OK range. I have already harvested a few banana type peppers with more on the way. I also have a cucumber vine that, while impressive in size, has not produced a single cucumber. Not sure what’s going on with that guy. That’s the thing about gardening. You never know what kind of year you are going to have. There will be surprises and then some disappointments a long the way. Sort of like life.