Late May Garden

The weather has been very funky this spring, but the garden seems to be doing well for the weather we've had. Here's an update on some of the crops.

My potato towers are growing like crazy.  It's a love/hate relationship with them.  I love how they're growing, but I hate having to fill in the cage with compost, because it's hard on the arms!















I started by lining the cages with straw, but as I went higher it got harder to keep the straw in place without the compost smashing it down.  I decided instead to try newspaper. The paper works well, but looks pretty ugly.  I guess soon, the main garden crops will be big enough that people from the road won't be able to see them.  I guess I shouldn't really care what people think, either!

It's time to fill in again, since the plants have grown so much. Luckily, the Colorado Potato Beetles haven't found the potatoes in the cages, but they have found the ones in the ground.


For a while, I was going out every day and smashing all the adult beetles and the eggs I'd find, but then we went away for the weekend and I sort of forgot about it.

Here's a volunteer borage plant, growing near the potato rows. I think it's in a place where it's not in the way, so I'll leave it there instead of transplanting it.

I am loving my cabbage patch.  These pictures are about a week old, and I feel like things have grown so much more since then.  The cabbage and broccoli are doing really well, and I'm excited that I may actually get a decent onion crop! (onions on the right)

Here's one of my lacinato kale plants.  It's such a pretty plant. I got my first harvest yesterday..enough for me for lunch.

Here's a patch where I planted tomatoes. I always end up with way more tomatoes than space, so I had to squeeze them in anywhere I could.  I planted 43 plants, but I think some of them have died.  I'm not heartbroken.

It'll be a late year getting tomatoes, but that's ok.  I planted lots of marigolds around the garden.  The pic below shows a marigold seedling next to a tomato seedling.

Here's part of my pea, spinach, and kale bed.  The peas are being so.slow. this year!  The spinach and kale will be ready to harvest soon.  This picture looks even older than a week...I guess I need to actually blog about the pictures the day I take them!

And my favorite veggie of all time...green beans!  They're up, but being eaten by something.


So that's it for now. I'll get new pictures this weekend so I can do an early May post. It's fun to look back at pictures of the garden each year and see where everything was and how it was doing.