It's Getting Warm!

The temps for the next week or so are going to be in the 90s with a heat index of up to 110F Sunday and Monday. I'm a little worried about fungus on my favas and how my peas will fare, but other than watering every night and harvesting radishes tomorrow before they bolt, there isn't much I can do.

Here's another round of garden pics in the usual order with a couple of highlights! As always, you can click on each picture to see a bigger version.

The Alliums - Bunching onions to the left, Cortland onions in the middle, Red Wing onions and garlic to the right.
These Red Wing F1 onions might just be the nicest onions I've ever grown so far.

The Legumes - 2 types of peas to the left, 3 favas in the middle, 1 fava and 2 pole beans to the right.
I'm harvesting about a gallon of peas every 2-3 days.

These are the Ianto's Yello favas. They could use some staking.

The Nightshades - 20 tomatoes and 6 peppers

These are Red House Free Standing tomatoes. They're late and I never get a ton of fruit but I love the plants.
They're so lush and stocky!

The Other Stuff - Odds and ends on the left, Quinoa in the middle, 13 types of Amaranth on the right.
Volunteer sunflowers, lots of dill and many, many calendula scattered about.

"Calendula corner" - you can't see these behind the sunflowers in the pic above.

A bigger picture view from the southwest corner. I realize that everything beyond the tomatoes is kind of a jumble of green at this point but I love it :-)

Schweizer Riesen Peas

These are the peas that I keep forgetting to take a picture of. Schweizer Riesen from Solstice Seeds in Hartland, VT. As you can see, they're huge! They're also very tasty.

Schweizer Riesen peas

My Garden Didn't Miss Me :(

I've been out of state since Saturday and, of course, wondering how my garden was doing with out me. It did so well that I think I should go away more often! There are some weeds to deal with and other little things, but there are also peas, radishes, good sized tomatoes on the way, and everything is huge!

The sun was pretty far to the west when I took these and I couldn't get a decent picture, but the peas are bearing heavily. Schweizer Riesen is ahead of Shirk Family but both look good!

I purposefully organized these like my post from last week for easy comparison.

The Alliums - Bunching onions to the left, Cortland onions in the middle, Red Wing onions and garlic to the right.

The Legumes - 2 types of peas to the left, 3 favas in the middle, 1 fava and 2 pole beans to the right. I didn't take any close up pictures but the peas are bearing heavily!

The Nightshades - 20 tomatoes and 6 peppers.

A Heidi tomato, coming along fast!

The Other Stuff - Odds and ends on the left, Quinoa in the middle, 13 types of Amaranth on the right.
Huge volunteer sunflowers, lots of dill and many, many calendula scattered about.

A bigger picture view from the southwest corner.

Taking Pictures to Avoid Weeding

I finished weeding the quinoa tonight and then focused on taking pictures rather than sorting through the poppies and such in the last row. :-)

Pics are below. As always you can click on them to see a bigger version.

The Alliums - Bunching onions to the left, Cortland onions in the middle, Red Wing onions and garlic to the right.

The Legumes - 2 types of peas to the left, 3 favas in the middle, 1 fava and 2 pole beans to the right.

The Nightshades - 20 tomatoes and 6 peppers.

The Other Stuff - Odds and ends on the left, Quinoa in the middle, 13 types of Amaranth on the right.

A bigger picture view from the southwest corner.

Gardening through Neglect

Other than watering now and then I haven't done much in the Intervale since straw day. I did go weed the amaranth and half of the quinoa tonight though I didn't think to take a pic. The quinoa got mulched but the amaranth is still a little small.

That said, the garden is doing great! The peas and favas are blossoming, the beans are growing, the onions are huge and the tomatoes have settled right in.

Schweizer Riesen pea blossom

Windsor Fava blossoms

Side story: I spent most of last week getting my Craftsbury garden ready and planted only to have a frost on a night when the expected low was 45F. I'm waiting to see what comes back from the abuse but it wasn't looking good yesterday and they may have gotten another frost last night. Vermont gardening is rough.

Straw Day

First, I didn't get around to posting about it on Wednesday but I finished weeding the north end of the garden that evening. The bunching onions went a lot faster with the new, mini Rogue Hoe pictured a few posts back and I cleaned up the beds I'd done previously as well as the edges. It all looked pretty great if I do say so myself and the lack of bugs continues to be a nice surprise.

I did a quick job of weeding the Amaranth bed this morning, mostly to knock the weeds back a bit. The seedlings are still too small to put up with much soil disturbance beyond that. The good news is that they all seem to be coming up!

I started doing the same with the quinoa bed but the poor plants were tipping over if I got anywhere close to them. The germination there seems a little spotty, especially the southern half of the bed. There's definitely some lambs quarters in that bed too which will be interesting. I can't tell them apart so I'm leaving both for now.

I did a little poking around where I planted poppies and even found a few little sprouts! They're also spotty and don't seem to have come up anywhere that compost landed on them. Whoops! A lesson for next time! I think poppies in general are probably easier as transplants.

I did all of this weeding to kill time until the straw truck came! BACG organizes a big straw and hay buy that any gardeners can get in on and it costs less than buying it at the local stores. It's nice stuff too, fresh from the grain fields in Quebec. I ordered 6 bales which is definitely overkill but I hadn't planned on having all of the leaves and straw in my tomato section when I ordered last fall. Once the straw came I mulched the entire north end of the garden as well as the tomatoes in the southwest corner. The southeast quarter is where all the seedlings are and they're still too small to tolerate the straw, so that's on hold. Check it out:

The north end - Peas/radishes, favas and pole beans in front, onions and garlic in the rear.

The tomato bed with a fresh coat of straw.