June has arrived and it’s been beautiful! The garden is growing, but I’m not expecting much this season. Thankfully the yard has a LOT of perennial plants which are producing well!
I took these pictures at the end of the week, left to go backpacking for the weekend and came home to quite a bit of progress in the berries!
Just today, I picked over a half pound of honey berries (haskaps). There are more on the bushes that will be ready for harvest in the next couple of days.
Some of the boysenberries and raspberries are starting to turn. I think they will be ready earlier this last year.
The more standard berries are ripening as well. I’ve picked about 5 alpine strawberries, and about an ounce of raspberries. Just today, we picked 2 blueberries! I’m always excited when things start coming in and there’s some production in the garden.
For the other stuff that returns or grows every year, our apples are coming in well on 2 of our 3 trees. The tree in the middle was pruned quite a bit this winter, so I think it’ll be fine next year.
The thyme has blossomed and looks beautiful! I’ll try harvesting some of the stalks that haven’t bloomed to dry for use as spices this fall.
Now for the garden, I’ll start with what is doing really well! Peas and potatoes!! We have blossoms on both, but peas are starting to ripen.
Have you ever smelled a potato blossom? I wish I could provide you with a scratch and sniff picture because they smell AMAZING!
The garden rows are still looking rather pathetic. But, so be it. The radishes I had planted went to flower, so I pulled them up. I would say I harvested probably a total of 7 radishes. The beets that were planted at the same time as the radishes just didn’t grow. I have one that grew to about 3 inches and stopped. And several others that grew to about an inch tall and stopped.
Once I harvested the radishes, I cut of the stalks and threw them on top of the garden to let them rot back into the soil.
The asparagus barely came up with a whopping total of 6 stalks but what came up grew and is going to seed. I’m hoping that it will help replenish the crowns underground and we’ll get a lot more next year.
The spinach has bolted and is either going to flower or just go to seed. I’ll be pulling out the spinach later this week. I’ll plant more in September when things get cooler again.
I also got the tomatoes and peppers I had started from seed moved into their final spots. We’ll see how they do. We just don’t get warm enough for most tomatoes and peppers.
There is plenty of room to get some things planted for fall. The potatoes in the garden are doing well. There’s a small patch of peas that are about a month behind the other peas. And the black beans seem to be coming out of their slug-eaten state and are growing new leaves.
We also have some delicata squash starting and some Peruvian tubers planted that are doing well. The tubers were done last year and were kept in the fridge to plant again this year. We’ll see how they do. That is one of the ‘exotic’ plants my hubby likes to try out!
And finally, I threw a bunch of old seed packets into a section of the yard that the bunnies can get at. I figured if something grew, then the bunnies could feast. It looks like we have some cilantro starting in that section. Feast away bunnies, cilantro is gross!!
There you have it. The garden is doing its garden thing and I’m waiting patiently for it to need me. See you next month with the next update!
Nice to see the pictures