Rainy Day in the Garden

After an extremely hot day in the garden yesterday, last night's thunderstorms and the associated inch of rainfall were quite welcome. The ground was too wet to plant more tomatoes and zucchini this morning, but we took care of some other farm chores instead. Now the cucumbers have been tied onto the trellises and mulched, both rows of tomatoes in the front garden have been mulched, and another five flats of Greco basil are freshly potted up. The back garden is looking nice and tidy now,

although there are still three or four more rows' worth of zucchini to be planted when the soil dries out a bit. The sugar snap peas are trying to make a vertical escape - some of the plants are over 6' tall now! I harvested over five pounds of peas on Saturday, and there are plenty more where that came from.

Also growing like crazy is our potato experiment:

We knew we weren't going to have room in the garden this year for any kind of potato patch, so, as we're wont to do, we decided to play mad scientist. One encounter with a saw later, this empty fish emulsion drum became two huge containers for seed potatoes. There's no way of knowing what kind of yield we'll get with this method, but the plants themselves certainly are happy! If this scheme bears fruit (har har har), I'm envisioning a whole row of drum halves lined up in the back garden for next year.

In the front garden, there are little baby tomatoes appearing on the plants we put in the ground two weeks ago:

It's easy to forget that it's still very early in the season. Last year we lost so much time trying to grow lettuce and greens that we were behind schedule when it came to the actual vegetable crops, and we were playing catch-up for the rest of the season. This year, we're right on schedule, but we still have to remind ourselves of that fact! I have a spectacular talent for worrying, particularly when it comes to the garlic: is it making bulbs? Is it getting enough water? Is it getting too much water? What about fertilizer? When is it going to be ready to harvest? Garlic is a crop that is a little more mysterious than most - with tomatoes, the answers to those questions are obvious. If the plants are nice and green, they have plenty of nutrients. If there are flowers and tomatoes forming, they're developing just fine. If the plants are looking wilted, they need some water. If the tomato is red/yellow/purple/etc. and firm but with a little give, it's ready to harvest.

Not so with garlic! The only obvious signs of development are plant size and scape production (but only on certain varieties) - to know more, you have to dig a plant, and that means one less plant to harvest! But the trade-off is that you gather information about what's going on below the surface. By digging a garlic plant at this point, I can tell how moist the soil is around the roots, how big the bulbs are, how many of the all-important wrappers are still intact, and so on. It's a small sacrifice, but at least I've got some fresh garlic for dinner tonight!

(And for the record: the Spanish Roja, at the very least, is putting on some very nice bulb development and is starting to throw out some scapes.)

The cabbage is looking good, and I feel bad that I haven't had time to fertilize it in the past week. Cabbage is a heavy feeder and it would no doubt be even happier with a dosing of fish emulsion. I can practically taste the cole slaw when I look at that photo!

Another monster plant right now is the culinary lavender right outside the greenhouse door. It's really taken off this year and is about ready to flower:

I'm thinking lavender-infused sugar, or maybe some lavender simple syrup to pour over some freshly shaved ice for an afternoon treat.

And now I need to go whip up a couple of batches of garlic scape pesto! Scapes are hands down my favorite taste of spring.