Garden Progress June 1st.

i can't believe it is already June!  i haven't started to completely panic about being behind, but i may start to pretty soon. i still don't have my garden completely in, but everything has been planted and is growing well in the greenhouse. So even though it's not in the garden, it's still planted and doing well. i just need to spend one day getting everything in the ground.

Kids are out of school for the summer, and we are starting off our summer vacation with one sick kid (fever and cough) and mama sick from the Doxy i'm taking for Lyme.  Good times!

Picked our first homegrown salad a few weeks ago. All of my cold crops are planted and doing great.   i've been picking lettuce, spinach, swiss chard, kale and asparagus for a few weeks now. Also a few small carrots and radishes.

Just this last week i started getting broccoli and garlic scapes too. i finally decided to use row covers this year and for the first time ever, i have beautiful worm-free organic broccoli! It's your trying to grow anything in the cabbage family, row covers are the way to go!! 

No worms, aphids or bugs of any kind! why did it take me so long to figure this out? lol.

i also have cabbage, cauliflower, purple sprouting broccoli and fractal broccoli all under row covers.  i also have one on some cucumber plants. i'm eager to see if i can actually grow cucumbers without getting sudden wilt from the cucumber beetles.

My peas took a beating when we had a hail storm back in April, so i had to replant most of them and they are finally starting to bloom. i planted regular sugar snaps, and also these Blush tendril snap peas from Baker's Creek. The blossoms are so pretty, and they climb like crazy. The pea pods are supposed to be blushed with pink as well.  i hope that they are as sweet and tasty as sugar snaps. 

Eggplants are doing fantastic in the greenhouse.  They never seem to do very well in the garden. Flea beetles tend to eat the leaves and then they end up somewhat stunted and never really recover.  The last couple years i've succesfully grown them in pots, so this year i planted a bunch in pots and plan to keep them safe in the greenhouse, moving them outside occasionally if it's too hot inside.

This year i totally over planted tomatoes again. i have a bunch in the greenhouse, and a bunch in the garden...plus tons of starts just waiting to be repotted and planted.  Having a place to actually start seeds has been so wonderful.  Everytime i move plants out of the greenhouse i start more seeds. :) 

Growing in the greenhouse is a bit of an experiment this year. i'm not sire if it will get too warm for the plants to pollinate or if some will have to be hand pollinated...or if they won't work out at all. My husband built a larg raised bed inside the greenhouse and i have tomatoes, eggplant, peppers, carrots and lettuce planted in it. So far everything is doing great.  i'm able to vent the greenhouse, and with the magnetic screen door i can keep the doors open.  i already have lots of green tomatoes. My only challenge is keeping everything watered. The plants tend to dry out quickly, and i feel i'm constantly watering them.

We have the rainwater collection cistern set up for irrigation, but it really hasn't rained much this spring so i worry that i'm going to drain it by the amount of water i've been using.  

So far it all going well, and i'm trying to make a point of documenting it all so that next year i know what works and what doesn't.  i'm really hoping for a productive year though and feel like the greenhouse is really a benefit for my garden and homesteading path.