Getting as much Harvests Done before Vegetables Start Going to Seed

At the moment the only vegetable that has started going to seed are my radishes which will need to be picked before the radish becomes too small to consume.  They were quick to sprout and very quick to go to seed, but that may be due to thinning them out to late.  I needed to thin them out a little bit earlier and I think they would have been fine, but I can always grow another harvest in the fall. 

Other than my radishes and peas everything seems to be going quite well.  My peas were done long before my radishes and they didn’t produce much.  This might be due to the hot weather and possibly lack of rain.  Even though I watered them the soil might have dried out faster than other parts of the garden.  I should have added mulch around these plants and that would have helped the soil stay moist and would have retained water helping out my cool weather plants. 

I did place mulch around my potatoes this year since after last season they turned brown quicker than I would have liked I thought it best to give them as much mulch as possible.  It seems to be working and the soil is staying moist and the plants are thriving even in this hot weather we have been having.   

They are already producing flowers which is a good sign for potatoes and some of them are starting to pop through the ground.  Place a little bit of soil on top of it to cover it and make sure it doesn’t get exposed to the sun.

Corn will be the next plant that I will have to place mulch around once I do one last weeding and side dress them with blood meal.  After that I can leave them alone in terms of weeding and that they need is lots of water because they happen to be heavy feeders.  I might give them some fish/seaweed emulsion once they silks or tassels start coming in, but that will be it for feeding. 

 
Once I am done with the corn I can start attaching my rope to my pole beans.  They have started producing vines and I will begin attaching them to my bean trellis to prevent them from going all over the place looking awful.

Cleaning up Plants and Starting to Till the Soil

This past week was perfect to start cleaning up plants including blueberries and hopefully will be cleaning up strawberries very soon.  I need to remove the straw from these plants before the good spring weather arrives.  At the moment my strawberry plants still have straw covering them, but many of them are starting to grow through the straw which is a good sign and I will start removing the straw very soon.  Hopefully this week as long as the weather is good I will remove the straw from my plants and start loosening up the soil for them.

I have cleaned up my blueberry plants by removing any weeds that started growing around them, removing old or dead branches, and loosening the soil for them to provide some air circulation.  I will be adding a mixture of manure and peat most around them in order to give them the nutrients they need to produce delicious berries this season.  As long as the flowers open and don’t wither I should have a decent season.

Yesterday I decided that it was time to get my potatoes into the ground before it starts to rain for quite awhile.  I also was able to get my pea seeds and radish seeds into the soil.

 

 I started tilling the garden yesterday and only did a portion of the garden instead of the whole thing.  I only need a portion of the garden in order to plant my spring crop plants and seeds.  The next plants that will be added to the garden will be spinach, lettuce, and possibly some flowers before the month is done.

I am still planting seeds indoors and when I get a good day of weather I place my plants outside to ready them for planting them into the garden.  I would probably say that my flowers will be the first to get ready to the weather because I need to get them into the garden as fast as possible.  These flowers are important to get as many beneficial insects to the garden as quickly and early as possible.

Time for Harvesting Many Spring Crops

It is that time of the year when spring crops are ready for harvesting which include radishes, lettuce, pea pods, broccoli, and soon to be harvested potatoes.  These are all cool weather crops but are best harvested when the weather gets just a little bit warmer.  You don’t want to pick them in very hot weather because they will most likely start to bolt and no longer be edible.  May to June is the perfect months to harvest these kinds of vegetables.

Let’s start off with lettuce which is usually the first plant to be harvested right next to radishes.  I have had just one harvest so far, but I know there is plenty more lettuce in the garden.  I like to space out harvests especially if I have many lettuce plants.  There is only so much I can store in the fridge and so much I can eat each day.  This way we have plenty of time to eat it without being overloaded with lettuce.
 

Radishes are also another springtime vegetable that is great to have through the cool weather months.  I grew about a half a row this season planting two different kinds of radishes.  One of them was supposed to be a traditional radish while the other was supposed to be much larger.  The key to radishes is to keep them covered with dirt and don’t forget to water them otherwise they will crack and possible rot in the ground.  I was able to get some good sized radishes from this harvest which I have been enjoying in many salads this year.

Last but not least comes my strawberries.  They had been growing this entire season and when they started producing many flowers I was excited to starting picking and enjoying them.  Since these are June bearing strawberries it is a good bet that they will fully ripen in the month of June.  This is the first good harvest I got from them since I started planting them years ago.  It takes a few years before you get a bountiful harvest from these plants

How Late is Too Late to Plant Peas and Radishes Outside?

Timing is everything when it comes to gardening because there is a time when it is too late to start planting certain seeds.  In this case it is between radishes and snow peas.  I always like to get them into the soil during the month of April and no later.  Although I just planted them in the soil today which is still within the month of April, I would have rather planted them a couple of weeks ago if the weather cooperated.  Luckily this week was good enough to cultivate the soil and I had to plant them today in the cloudy rainy weather.

Now that they are in the soil they can take advantage of the cool weather and rainy conditions which they seem to like and thrive in just like my onions.  I will soon start planting my lettuce, spinach, cabbage, and other plants into the garden soon once they get a little bit bigger.  These I planted indoors and have been in containers outside for the past month or so.

I plan on getting my potatoes into the ground as well.  I am thinking about giving them an entire thirty foot row in the garden.  I think one thirty foot row is plenty of room to get many plants into the ground once I cut off the eyes and dry them a little bit. 

Each eye is potentially a plant that is waiting to be planted into the ground.  You can just plant the whole potato in the ground, but if you cut the eyes you can get many more plants and hopefully a much larger harvest.

My containers that I have planted indoors that are full of edible plant seeds and flower seeds are starting to sprout and break through the soil.  Some seeds that were planted indoors include pumpkins, zucchini, watermelon, peppers, eggplant, cucumbers, pickles, cantaloupe, honeydew, and many more.

I have also planted flowers that include Queen Anne’s lace, statice, coriander/cilantro, cosmos, calendula, marigolds, corn flowers, and many more.

Getting Those Other Cool Seeds Into the Ground

Now that I have my onions in the totes and beginning to sprout it is time to start planting some seeds into the garden.  I thought about it and I was sure that it was time for pea and radish seeds to be planted right about now.  The weather is still cool, but these seeds shouldn't be affected by frost or cooler than normal temperatures.  They are less productive when the temperature is above 70 degrees and work better in cool temps.

 

Now there are still many other seeds that I need to get in the ground and as long as the weather cooperates I should complete all the rest by the end of the week.  I would like to get my spinach, broccoli, and brussel sprouts into the ground as soon as possible.  I like to have spinach with salads and different sandwiches and getting them planted in the ground sooner I will be able to enjoy the flavor of spinach sooner as well.

Getting Good Sized Radishes from Garden

In a previous post I said I was going to start picking these vegetables real soon and decided on picking them today just after some morning rain.  I didn't want to let these plants get to seed otherwise they might come out tough and not very tasteful.  I probably could have picked them sooner, but they still look quite good and can't wait to start eating them in a salad along with my harvested lettuce.

They came out good and was very exciting to pick them from the ground today and see how big they have become.  I didn't pick all of them and still have a few that are not quite ready but very soon they will come out of the ground.  A total of 24 weighing two pounds were harvested this afternoon.

Update on Peas, Radishes, Lettuce and Onions

I just wanted to shoot an update on my spring crop for now.  With the weather that we have been having it has benefited my spring crop the most.  My lettuce plants are flourishing, my peas are starting to produce pods, my onions have thick green stems, and my radishes are almost ready for harvesting.

The past two weeks have been exciting and with all the flowers that my peas are growing I am sure I will have plenty of pods before the spring season is over.  If we keep getting cool and wet weather the peas will give me enough pods to last several weeks or more.

The last time I checked my radishes the roots were quite small and I was covering them up with dirt in order to keep the bulbs out of the sun.  The sun can turn them color and make them quite bitter similar to what happens to carrots if exposed to sunlight.  Now they are about the size of golf balls from what I could see.  I won't know their actual size until I harvest them which should be coming real soon.

My lettuce plants have many leaves at the moment and I should start harvesting more of them from most of my plants.  They look quite ready and the weather has definitely been helping them with these leaves.  I have harvested from a couple of plants such as iceberg, butterhead, and loose leaf.  The only one I haven't harvested from would be my romaine lettuce or the Ruby glow hybrid.  I will be picking from them real soon once I think they have enough leaves to loose a few of them.

Here is the romaine lettuce that I haven't picked any leaves from yet.  I probably could pick a few of the older and lower ones.  I might do that tomorrow depending on what I have going on.








So far my spring crop is doing quite well and also my onions are part of this season as well and they are getting thick and strong stems.  This usually means that I might be getting good sized onions this season as long as this weather holds out or I keep feeding them until they are ready to be picked.

Thinning Out Spring Crop Sprouts

At the moment the only spring crops I have include lettuce, onions, radishes, peas, spinach, and celery.  The only plants that needed to be thinned out were my peas and radishes.  They grew quite fast and I only planted them in the beginning of April.  Right now was about time to thin them out giving them plenty of room for their roots to spread and grow correctly.

Just some of my radish plants that need to be thinned out before their roots start wrapping around each other and will become much more difficult to remove them.

Here are my radishes once I went through them all and kept just one plant per cluster of sprouts.










My pea plants were done the same way.  The good news about these plants is that their roots do not spread in a large area and I can keep them relatively close together unlike many other plants.

Look Some New Sprouts in the Garden

As you know I have planted some seeds of peas, radishes, celery, and spinach a couple of weeks ago right into garden rows.  I am now seeing the first signs of sprouting from both my peas and radishes.  The good weather that has arrived has definitely been helping them in sprouting very soon.

 I will have to start thinning them out real soon, but I just wanted to show you some of the sprouting that is going on within the garden.

Lettuce has also been growing good and a some more potted plants were transplanted into the garden.  I don't like leaving them in pots too long and once they are big enough it is time to set them into the soil in the garden.

Cool Weather Seeds are Now in The Garden

I have four seeds that were ready for the garden not including my potato or lettuce plants that will be placed in the ground real soon.   I do have a few seed potatoes in the ground, but I didn’t get to put all of them in the garden for now.  I will probably take tomorrow to just add the rest of the potatoes that I have in the ground.  The holes are ready for them and all I need to do is add some manure and bone meal and place them.

I had some spinach seeds that I used to only plant a partial row.  I will have to get some more in order to fill the excess space that was left due to lack of seeds.  Next to my spinach row are my celery seeds that I placed into the ground rather than planting them indoors first.

In the second row I have snow peas and radishes.  It is a good thing to put peas and radishes together because they make good inter-planting plants.  I can easily put radishes in between the pea plants in order to save room just in case I need to save space.

Planning on Including New Seeds and Plants Never Cultivated Before

I like to keep my garden diversified and not grow the same thing every year.  Although I do grow some of the same things each season I always like to add at least one new plant that I haven't grown before.  This year is different and instead of one new plant or seed I am going to be adding five new plants which should make for an interesting year.

I purchased them about a week ago and they just arrived today.  Radishes, peas, and a few lettuce seeds are what I have at the moment.  I did get some potatoes and strawberries which are also going to be grown in the garden this year hopefully.  I also have celery seeds which I am going to be planting this spring along with lettuce, spinach, peas, and possibly radishes.

When the new year came around I actually didn't think I was going to buy all these new plants, but I thought it would be better to add some new for a little bit of a challenge.  The strawberries and potatoes will come later in the springtime because they are plants rather than seeds.  They don't send them until it is about time to put them into the soil.