Summer Garden

It’s been a while since I really wrote anything about the garden.

We had a considerable amount of lettuce that survived the winter.
When we transplanted it in the spring, it filled an entire bed and more.
The taste wasn’t particularly good, as the lettuce was so old, but we’ve left the plants to bolt, and will collect the seeds in the hope that they’ll produce an even more winter-hardy variety.

I had made hundreds of newspaper pots for seedlings in the early spring, but I believe there was something about the ink in the paper that caused the roots to be stunted.
In fact, Frank has pulled up still-intact newspaper pots from the garden, so they are absolutely NOT degrading in the way I’d hoped.

The tomatoes and brassica that were planted were very much stunted compared to those planted into plastic pots (to the tune of 3 or 4 leaves as compared to 8!).
The tomatoes that were planted into the newspaper are probably around a month behind those that were planted into plastic.
Never again.

The brassica were a miserable failure AGAIN.
I’ll have to really look into why we can’t seem to grow cabbage/broccoli/cauliflower.

The melons and squash are doing beautifully.. This is our first year growing scalloped squash – they’re sweet like yellow squash, but have a beautiful shape!!
As for melons,  we have loads growing at the moment – and some are already the size of a child’s basketball!!
I’m hoping that there will be enough heat through the next 2 months to bring ’em up to a good size.

The corn has seemed a couple weeks behind the corn in farmers’ fields, but it nevertheless silking well.

I canned 4 1/2 quarts of beans two days ago.
It would seem that  one full colander fills two quarts.

The tomato harvest is about to begin in earnest.
We’ve been picking around one a week for the last three weeks, but there are loads that are on the cusp of turning.