The garden so far
Jul. 15th, 2013 11:58 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rscRather a mixed bag this year.
The weather has been peculiar. June was very wet, and alternately too hot and too cold. July has been way hot so far, with a constant but mostly-unfulfilled threat of thunderstorms.
Annual flowers: A lot of things are late blooming, probably because of the weather. There seem to have been fewer nasturtium seeds in the packet than usual, with the result that the southern end of their box is kind of sparse. Something (rabbits? who knows?) chomped through our Sensation cosmos repeatedly, and we ended up buying plants (which are apparently big enough to discourage whatever it was). Somebody remind me next year why I keep saying I've given up on dahlias (I keep succumbing to their temptations, and insects devour them).
We converted yet another annual bed to shade-tolerant perennials. I put seven things in it (room for several more), and six of them have survived so far, which is pretty good. I'm (im)patiently waiting to see if the gentian will bloom.
Then there are the edibles.
Strawberries: Major disappointment. The Sparkles that we planted last year seem to be really healthy and had a lot of unripe berries coming when we left for Ann Arbor. But there have been hardly any since we got back. I'm thinking the netting system was insufficient to defend against birds and/or (more likely) squirrels. Somebody left off the "n" at the beginning of the "ever-bearing" variety. The southern ends of the beds aren't getting enough sun; we have to do some serious cutting back over there.
The raspberries we planted years ago have long since lost their sun, and don't do much. On the other hand, there's a volunteer (inconveniently located next to the strawberry bed) that's producing pretty well, and I've been able to get in ahead of the birds most of the time so far.
Lettuce: Seeds were slow in coming, and the plants we bought did well for a while, but something's been eating them (see also below re: parsley). The planted-from-seed ones are still pretty small, and many of them don't look great.
Beets: Again they were kind of late (I planted some more after the first set didn't produce much), but they're doing better than they have in a long time.
Peas: The revised trellis is almost tall enough. The newly-widened bed is still not quite wide enough. But they did well, and would have been better if we'd harvested them more frequently. All done (and pulled out) now, their bed occupied for the duration by a lantana purchased for the purpose, along with more volunteer rudbeckias than I regard as strictly necessary.
Tomatoes: Fewer seedlings survived the original indoor planting than usual, but that's OK, since we usually have too many. However, it alarmed John enough for him to insist on buying one supplemental plant (a "black" cherry). It and the survivors are slowly getting ready to fruit.
Herbs: For the first time in a while, we've been able to get both regular thyme and lemon thyme to thrive (although the true test will be whether they get through the winter), and the same looks to be true of the tarragon. The new rosemary plant is growing very slowly. but looks healthy. The spearmint, chocolate mint, sage, oregano, and oregano thyme are displaying their usual rude health (very rude in some cases), and the basil is doing fine. The orange mint, always the weakest of the three, seems to be gone.
But the parsley and dill have both been disasters. Something keeps eating them. I think it's bugs in the case of the dill, but probably mammals in the case of the parsley (stalks bitten down to nothing).
(Perhaps relevantly, I've seen a couple of rabbits around this year, for the first time in quite a while.) Anyway, we bought more plants of both a few days ago, and put some short fencing around them (which has been sufficient to deter rabbits in the past), but this morning I noticed that the parsley was once again mostly gone. (The dill is OK so far, but the plants are very small still, so they may just not be tempting enough yet.) We may just have to resign ourselves to a summer without parsley, which is a dispiriting prospect.
It's too hot to garden right now.
The weather has been peculiar. June was very wet, and alternately too hot and too cold. July has been way hot so far, with a constant but mostly-unfulfilled threat of thunderstorms.
Annual flowers: A lot of things are late blooming, probably because of the weather. There seem to have been fewer nasturtium seeds in the packet than usual, with the result that the southern end of their box is kind of sparse. Something (rabbits? who knows?) chomped through our Sensation cosmos repeatedly, and we ended up buying plants (which are apparently big enough to discourage whatever it was). Somebody remind me next year why I keep saying I've given up on dahlias (I keep succumbing to their temptations, and insects devour them).
We converted yet another annual bed to shade-tolerant perennials. I put seven things in it (room for several more), and six of them have survived so far, which is pretty good. I'm (im)patiently waiting to see if the gentian will bloom.
Then there are the edibles.
Strawberries: Major disappointment. The Sparkles that we planted last year seem to be really healthy and had a lot of unripe berries coming when we left for Ann Arbor. But there have been hardly any since we got back. I'm thinking the netting system was insufficient to defend against birds and/or (more likely) squirrels. Somebody left off the "n" at the beginning of the "ever-bearing" variety. The southern ends of the beds aren't getting enough sun; we have to do some serious cutting back over there.
The raspberries we planted years ago have long since lost their sun, and don't do much. On the other hand, there's a volunteer (inconveniently located next to the strawberry bed) that's producing pretty well, and I've been able to get in ahead of the birds most of the time so far.
Lettuce: Seeds were slow in coming, and the plants we bought did well for a while, but something's been eating them (see also below re: parsley). The planted-from-seed ones are still pretty small, and many of them don't look great.
Beets: Again they were kind of late (I planted some more after the first set didn't produce much), but they're doing better than they have in a long time.
Peas: The revised trellis is almost tall enough. The newly-widened bed is still not quite wide enough. But they did well, and would have been better if we'd harvested them more frequently. All done (and pulled out) now, their bed occupied for the duration by a lantana purchased for the purpose, along with more volunteer rudbeckias than I regard as strictly necessary.
Tomatoes: Fewer seedlings survived the original indoor planting than usual, but that's OK, since we usually have too many. However, it alarmed John enough for him to insist on buying one supplemental plant (a "black" cherry). It and the survivors are slowly getting ready to fruit.
Herbs: For the first time in a while, we've been able to get both regular thyme and lemon thyme to thrive (although the true test will be whether they get through the winter), and the same looks to be true of the tarragon. The new rosemary plant is growing very slowly. but looks healthy. The spearmint, chocolate mint, sage, oregano, and oregano thyme are displaying their usual rude health (very rude in some cases), and the basil is doing fine. The orange mint, always the weakest of the three, seems to be gone.
But the parsley and dill have both been disasters. Something keeps eating them. I think it's bugs in the case of the dill, but probably mammals in the case of the parsley (stalks bitten down to nothing).
(Perhaps relevantly, I've seen a couple of rabbits around this year, for the first time in quite a while.) Anyway, we bought more plants of both a few days ago, and put some short fencing around them (which has been sufficient to deter rabbits in the past), but this morning I noticed that the parsley was once again mostly gone. (The dill is OK so far, but the plants are very small still, so they may just not be tempting enough yet.) We may just have to resign ourselves to a summer without parsley, which is a dispiriting prospect.
It's too hot to garden right now.
