The Garden In May

I felt like a full look at what is going on in the garden was appropriate, as May is coming to a close. Hard to believe when it feels as though it has JUST started to be warm...

Things are progressing, but not at the same rate as last year.  Hopefully, we don't get a slow down due to ridiculous heat this July like last year.

Anyway, I was able to spend several hours in the garden Saturday morning because the hubby was giving three different students guitar lessons.  The weather was beautiful! (especially since I was expecting rain)  I bailed on a garage sale with good friends, just needing some time at home.  I have been sick in some capacity for the past three weeks as of tomorrow, and really enjoyed some refresher time in the garden.

I fed everything, watered everything, cleaned up all of the tomato plants, and extra transplants that I had lying around.  I even CLEANED all of the trays and seed starters, and put everything AWAY!  I finished up with pruning out my tomato suckers.  My blog isn't called Megan's MESSY Garden for no reason, that work is not something I willingly embark upon without much drive. I feel very satisfied when I walk out there now.  Some of the extra plants that I didn't have room for in the garden were haphazardly planted in the turtle pen near the compost pile. If they grow, then great! If not, then I didn't kill all of my "babies" without giving them a chance.



Here are some pictures of the garden progress so far:

Strawberries are growing like weeds, and are now sweet, thanks to a bit of a heat up! Many are small, and some are strangely shaped, but I guess that's what I get for not picking off the blossoms last year. There is certainly no lack for berries though!

side note: Sunday, I saw a pesky squirrel enjoying a BRIGHT red strawberry perched on the corner of the strawberry patch cover... which was the perfect incentive to repair the netting that was attacked by the weed whacker last year... so that job is done. No more sharing of my berries.

My scallions have all gone to seed, but they're pretty neat looking, and I still eat them, the center stalks can be a bit woody, but the rest is great. I'm planning to replant as I start to use them up.

Here are my four okra plants (still need to thin them...), and my beans that have some sort of slug or other pest damage

Newly transplanted lettuce

Onto the tomatoes: with the lettuce/spinach down the middle that is getting harvested more and more

See the runt Green Zebra, top right? Looks like it's starting to recover...

The Celebrity plant below is the only plant that I ended up using with from my $.50 nursery back ups... it's turning out to be a really nice plant, and is currently the only plant that I actually have open blossoms on... I want to take a picture of the first from my OWN starts though for it to count :)

Here are my only other two runt tomato plants. As time progresses, the difference is pretty marked.  The little Pineapple is actually recovering, I'm still waiting on the Cherokee Purple to bounce back, but they've both been fed again, so I'm hoping.  The really LUSH Pineapple plant below is from my saved seed, which is kind of rewarding.  

Zucchini and Squash are growing like crazy.  A couple of leaves on the zucchini plants have been damaged, and I'm considering removed them.  They had loads of eggs of what looked like plain old gnats on the bottoms of them. I couldn't decide if they'd be harmful, but those are the leaves that are damaged.  Live and learn.  I'm not sure how I would have gotten rid of them though, the eggs were numerous and TINY!  I can see several female blossoms that will be coming shortly. I don't normally see those until much later, so there might even be early harvests (pending there are males to back them up when the time comes!)

Pretty little lettuce heads. I harvested the top left one after the picture! It was delicious!

Here are all of my pepper plants: jalapenos in the back, and bell peppers in the front.  We tend to harvest the jalapenos in big chunks for jalapeno poppers, so I put them in the back to not be in the way of traffic.

The last of the radishes, and a little cilantro.

More lettuce... and a small basil plant.  Red lettuces are my favorite this year!

Cayenne pepper plant is loving it's little pot! It's actually much bigger than any of those planted in the garden.

Broccoli: still much smaller than my friend's, but the bottom left head was about to bolt, so that was harvested today, though will be saved for next week's Harvest Monday.  The top left has started to form a little head. Those are both nursery starts, so I'm hoping the ones I planted will eventually form heads too...

Peas as beautiful as ever!

There are little peas all over the place. Some not so little too, we'll be getting our first harvest of peas tomorrow!

Sorry it was so picture heavy, I just want to TRY to keep good records this year! Hope everyone is out enjoying their gardens too!