Reprieve

Following a week of temperatures in the mid eighties to 90 degrees, we got a break last night with lower temperatures accompanied by rain. Relief. Most of our plants will do better with lower temperatures. Whew.
Peas are forming in pods and soon we will have a bumper crop. Broccoli has formed beautiful heads. Turnips are being harvested daily with some to be the bed on which our whole roasted chicken will bake for supper tonight. Spring onions harvested this morning will go in with garlic scapes and a few store bought potatoes. I'll sprinkle it all with herb salt and we eat like royalty.
Lettuce had started to bolt and was also looking parched so this rain saves it.  Garlic will soon be separating into cloves and will be coming out of the garden. All plants including weeds were doubling in size over night.
Beans are up everywhere! Um. What was I thinking? Where to plant corn? In the front yard? Maybe. I've had worse ideas and acted on them. We are good to the neighbors, so I really might be able to get away with it. And then there is amaranth and okra. What's a gardener to do?!?

Merveilles de Quartre Saisons
A most delicate, mild lettuce of French heritage.
You are so pretty on my plate! 

Green Beans

Green Beans! Planted three weeks ago, they are making flowers! And the seeds planted a week ago are already up! What! Warm soil is a magic elixir.
I have two pot experiments. One carrots, the other Swiss Chard. There is a control of the Swiss Chard. The control is in a 4x4 bed. The pot is next to the same bed ensuring the same sun and water. I have harvested from the bed twice. Not at all from the pot. Which is not to say the pot is not thriving, but the plants are different. I am going to attribute it to close, crowded plantings. The carrots are a very much a wait and see.
We have had very warm days here. Midwesterners call it summer. It is the way of our springs. In the next few days the temps will be in the mid 80's. Spinach and lettuce will bolt, some has already. Bolt is a funny word for the send up a flower shoot over night, like a colt of the the barn. Bye, bye spinach. Toodles lettuce. Make way for a pepper!
This little tidbit I learned on my Master Gardner trip to the NC State soil lab: marigolds really do kill nematodes, the bane of tomato plants. They really do. Also, we all have nematodes to some degree so our goal is to control the population. So...plant marigolds. I bought many from St Pauls High School plant sale. They are interspersed throughout the garden beds. Biology at it's finest, right there.

Swiss Chard can take the heat and is a great stand in for spinach. 

Watering and radishes

Every day is planting and watering day now that the weather has warmed. Seeds, especially small ones, need to be watered often so they will germinate and not wither in dry soil below the surface. Seedlings also need to be cared for or they will evaporate on hot days. We've had 85 degree afternoons so I've been out giving lettuce and spinach a cool watering to keep them from bolting. Speaking of leafy greens, we had Swiss Chard and leek frittata for supper with radishes on the side for supper last night. Quick, easy and pretty.

Speaking of radishes. It all started with seed inventory back in February. I had a lot of radish seeds that were a few years old. Time to plant or compost. So we planted a looong row in our community garden bed. They all germinated. All twelve feet of them. They grew into lovely red, mild tasting orbs. (We ate the last of them with supper last night.) I sowed the remaining seeds in a home bed a few weeks later. They will be ready in about a week. The key to radishes that aren't firecracker hot is to plant early and often because they really do best in cool weather. Because they mature quickly sequential planting ensures a long Spring season to brighten ones plate and palate.

Alas. No photo for your viewing pleasure. Too busy noshing.

Inventory

Leeks planted June 2016. Harvested April 5, 2017

In our beds here on Chestnut Street:
Contender green beans are just emerging. They are not climbing beans but they are heirloom and their reputation is that of heavy yielders. Hello yellow beans, just peeping out!

Potatoes are ready to mulch. I'll let the soil dry a bit first.

Radishes are a big winner in our salads. The rains have kept them mild.

Peas are flowering!

I keep checking the broccoli for heads. Not yet.

Beets are up.

Herbs are thriving.

Drum roll, please. Carrots in the pot are up!

In our community garden beds:
Do we really like turnips so much?

Carrots, you know I love you, right? Looking good, you do.

Radishes are gorgeous and tasty.

Garlic is coming on strong.

Onions, not my strong suit, look good.

Rutabagas look great! Big surprise because they took a hit from mid-March cold. Same with the peas. (The wind blows across football and soccer fields before blasting the garden plants in winter there.)

Beets are up.

Herbs are thriving.