“Always do your best. What you plant now, you will harvest later.” ~Og Mandino
As June ends, the veg garden has pumped out bits and spurts for a harvest. The weather has been in the 70s with loads of rain. And with weather like this, most of the veg garden is happy….most. The peppers really are not liking the cool rainy weather at all. But the forecast is back to the low 80s by the weekend. Which should help the harvest in July.
The last time I updated my veg gardens, I had planted beets, carrots, lettuces, potatoes, and harvested half of the radishes. And I still had many trays of veggie seedlings to get in the ground which I was finally able to do in early June.
You can see the shelves full of seedlings I was planting in early June. Top left is the tomato garden with tomatoes, sweet peppers and eggplant seedlings. I planted okra from seed. It is all growing slowly with the cooler weather. In the bottom picture is the portable bed. I had originally planted salad greens here, but it drained and dried too quickly so I had to move my lettuces, and I planted the green chiles here with the watermelon seedlings that I hope will grow up and over the trellis.
The red buckets are filled with celery seedlings growing strong, and the round planter is filled with chervil that is a bit mushy from the rain. The green buckets are the onions I started from onion sets.
The lettuces were moved to 2 window box containers (thanks Beth@PlantPostings for the reminder to do this). I netted the lettuces and the annual flower seed containers to keep out critters. I’ll update the cutting flowers in July.
The potatoes, in the Grow Bags, are growing strong, and with all the water, they grew quickly. You can see the blue potato flowers starting in late June. I expect to harvest some potatoes early as I am seeing foliage yellowing already.
Speaking of early, the garlic bed is already showing signs that it is time to harvest the Tuscan garlic. I pulled one bulb, and it was quite large and ready so I will be harvesting several this week. The rest will wait until later in July. The yellow flower is a pumpkin flower. I have 2 A-frame trellises over the garlic bed so I can train pumpkins to grow up and over the garlic. And the bottom right picture, shows one of the many scapes I pickled. The recipe is in my Monday post.
This is my Roots and Greens bed with beet, carrots, lettuce, Swiss chard and basil. It has grown well especially with all the rain we have had. I also have trellises spanning over the bed so I can grow various squashes (zucchini and winter squashes) over this bed.
I had to prick out beets and carrots in the above bed, as I planted loads of seeds to ensure I had enough germinating. So I had some beets and small carrots and many beet greens, and endive. Beet greens are becoming a new favorite in our salads.
Lastly we pulled the rest of the radishes in the pea bed to make room for bush and pole beans. You can see the peas finally bloomed in June (picture of pea blossom at the top of the post).
I did not plant my beans in rows as I normally would but instead planted them in a square. I got the idea from Linda@Crafty Gardener who was using a new device called, Seeding Square. I contacted the company in Canada to ask if I could trial the Seeding Square, and they readily said, yes. Unfortunately I had already planted most of my seeds before I received it…except the beans. So I decided to plant the beans using the Seeding Square.
Here is a close up look at the Seeding Square. So why use the Seeding Square? As the company says, it:
–Simplifies the planting process with an easy to use plant-by-color approach
-Lays a garden out in a grid formation without sticks and strings
-Make weeds easy to identify as all vegetables grow in a grid formation
-Optimizes amount of space for each vegetable, giving a much higher yield
-Allows anyone to plant the perfect garden without any prior experience
After reading about the Seeding Square, I was intrigued. The Seeding Square comes with a vegetable planting guide, and more online guides to assist with planting. I cleared an area, leveled the soil and pressed the Seeding square firmly into the soil. Then I followed the guide and found beans are planted using the yellow circles.
Using the orange wand, I poked holes into the soil (the correct depth using the guide on the side of the wand), and placed the bean seeds into the holes. Once I pulled up the Seeding Square, I covered up the planting holes…and voilà…done! I have to say this was the easiest seed planting I have done, and I added several squares of bean seeds, and then I planted more radishes as well. I was surprised at how much space I used and how many seeds I planted in this space. 27 bush beans (in 3 squares), 9 pole beans to go up the bean tower, and 32 radishes (in 2 squares using the red holes). In the bottom picture above, you can see the beans just starting about a week later.
And here are the beans a few weeks later. They are now flowering, and I should have beans soon. I will have an update, later this month, on how the beans and radishes are growing in the square planting scheme, and how the harvest is in this square compared to my planting in rows in prior years.
So far I am pleasantly surprised and impressed with the ease of planting, and how well the plants are growing. The one issue with this device for US customers is the cost of shipping. I know the company is trying to find a US distributor to lessen the shipping cost to the US so stayed tuned. You can also order the Seeding Square on Amazon.
Disclosure: I was given a Seeding Square to trial in exchange for my honest assessment of the product. I assured the company that I would give my initial thoughts and then follow-up throughout the season. This is my initial assessment, and I will follow-up each month with a final assessment at the end of the season.
How has your harvest been so far this season? What is your favorite vegetable to grow?
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Next up on the blog:
On Monday, I will be reviewing my June garden. Lots blooming, but little headway with projects due to the weather.
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