A Walk Through the Garden, May 20th

I certainly can't complain about the weather these days... I haven't had to water my garden since I first put in the seed, and that's a first for me! My plants may be wishing for a little more sun, but all in all this has been a very green spring.

Can you believe all that grass in the paths? It is positively taking over....

Oh, the blooms! My garden has been swelling with buds through all this rain, and in the last few days we've had bursts of fuchsia and dark merlot hollyhocks, giant Hopi dye sunflowers, orange merigolds, pink oxalis, and even a few mums and zinnias! And I finally spotted the first daisy buds ready to pop! I think flowers in the vegetable garden are well worth the space they take up.

In my pepper and eggplant bed my Ichiban eggplants are doing great, and I've already had the pleasure of harvesting three medium-sized fruits. Also in that bed are several good stands of spinach and a random, still-unidentified volunteer melon of some kind. I have no idea what it'll be, but I have not had any melons or cukes in that bed before so I'm not sure where the seed came from. I can't wait to see what it'll be (and how much room it'll end up taking up!).

My green beans are going crazy, though it's been a challenge to find opportunities to go out and pick them without getting drenched or eaten up by mosquitoes (oh the mosquitoes!). I am particularly excited about the beans because we had almost zero out of the 50 or so plants we planted last year.

Sadly my squash is still struggling. I've ruled out squash vine borers, and I'm starting to think that what might actually be the problem is all this rain- they might either have root rot or a soil iron deficiency. I think I'm going to head out in the morning and pull the yellowing plants out of the ground, do some amending, and plant some new squash seed with the hopes that it's not too late to get some replacements going.

The tomatoes are looking promising, though I'm starting to worry that they'll end up mealy and bland if we keep getting these constant soaking showers. Crossing my fingers that we'll balance back out before June is over.

So much is already bolting thanks to the cool down, heat up, wet wet weather we've had. I've let it all go, hoping to harvest seed soon and perhaps start another round of greens before the heat cranks up.

One last thing I noticed popping up throughout my garden space- thanks to the saturated ground- is all the fire ant mounds everywhere. I hate pesticides, and I especially hate the granular stuff since my chickens eventually get a shot at roaming the garden, but dang. There is just no cohabiting with these ants. I'm going to have to figure something out.

Aaaaaaand my last stop when I finish walking my garden is always a check on the peach trees which, despite the winds and weather, still have much of their fuzzy little fruits still clinging to their branches.

There is nothing more hopeful than flower buds and fuzzy baby peaches. Love.