What is your garden doing today?

[Claire]

After having a couple of years of not being home in crucial gardening weeks in spring, I was at home this year .... so thought I had everything under control! Then the rains started and my freinds started showing up for vacations and .... whoa! So this week I got out there and weeded and weeded and weeded and weeded and put down what felt like a ton of mulch.

I brought in the first two tomatoes; starting to turn red, but not quite. I brought in my first cucumber. I've made my first pesto for my freezer, and invented one for cilantro, and am thinking of one for sage. I miss my herbs so much in winter and am determined to do a better job of preserving them this year.

So what are you doing this week?

[larry_stewart]

Well, last week I picked a few pounds of string beans,cooked with some, blanched the others and froze them for later use ( last year I had enough frozen string beans to last me until about january). The swiss chard is also currently in season in my garden. Ive sauteed with some garlic, thrown in soups, made a "spinach (chard) pie".

Cucumbers are just starting to kick in, I picked a few, but none have made it to the house yet , since I love so snack on fresh cukes. Once I get an over abundance, Ill do the pickle thing, cucumber salad ...

Radishes, lettuce and peas have come and gone, need to get a second planting in.

Garlic and Mint I have picked, and are drying in the basement.

Picked one zuke a few days ago, will probably wind up in the pot tonight, still not %100 sure what im going to do with it yet.

Im doing my best to keep up with the weeds and mulch, As like you, every year I say to myself that ill never let things get out of control, but a few work days here, a few vacation days there some rain and boom, I think Im the best weed grower in the world!!!

Peppers, eggplants, tomatoes just flowering here, so I have a few weeks before they kick in.

Herbs doing well, pickem as I need them.

[GotGarlic]

We harvested about 6 pounds of onions a couple of weeks ago; cured them in the sunroom. Still have some Swiss chard out there. Roma tomatoes are starting to turn red, but the other tomatoes (6 varieties of heirlooms) are losing their blooms. Heard the gardening guy on the local news this a.m. talking about that - apparently, temp changes of 20 degrees or more from daytime to night can cause tomatoes to lose their blooms, but there's a product you can buy to make them set fruit. We're going to the feed-n-seed store today to talk to the owner about that.

Peppers are coming in nicely. Picked a few Anaheims yesterday, green bells are almost ready, a variety of hot peppers are growing and will be ready soon. We've been using lots of herbs - thyme, rosemary, bay leaves, dill, cilantro, mint. I even harvested a few stalks of lemongrass - we're growing this for the first time this year.

I'm going to plant another row of lettuce seeds today.

[suziquzie]

Watering mostly...
It was so wet at planting time I couldnt get anything in on time...
Now it's in and there's been no rain!!!!
I have some basil I could pick, not enough to make pesto, but for a little something anyway.

[Constance]

We picked sweet banana peppers last night, and could pick a little sweet basil. As for the tomatoes and bell peppers, we're just watching and waiting for the little ones to grow.

Kim grilled the sweet banana peppers whole while he was cooking burgers last night, and I split one and put on my burger. It was delicious!

[college_cook]

DYING!!! HAHAHAH!

Seriously now:

We moved into a place late this winter that had previously not been lived in for about 10 years. Weeds had gone completely unchecked during that time, so I've had a heck of a time with them in what will eventually be my garden. All of my methods for removal have failed so far, so I got fed up and yesterday about 1/4 of my yard got doused with a couple gallons of Roundup. I'll be elated if nothing else gets done this year other than getting those weeds OUT, and the landscaping done so I can do some actual growing next year.

Glad to hear the good news from everyone else's garden.

[buckytom]

the radishes have been harvested. we ate some, and i threw the rest into a ginat jar of leftover pickle brine. will have to see how they turn out.

we've eaten a dozen salads or more from my mesculun rows this year; have a few salads left that are still growing.

we eat a few handfuls of snap peas every other day; same goes for stringbeans. only 1 harvest has made it into the house, and was quickly sauteed in butter.

there's a ton of swiss chard ready. my boy eats a big, raw stem every day. the flavor is half way between celery (the stalk) and spinach (the greens).

i just picked a big bunch of big turnips, with lots more to go - somewhere between golf ball and baseball sizes. looking for good recipes for them.

i picked my first cuke of the season yesterday.

the corn is small, but the tassles are turning brown, so i may get a good ear or three.

there's lots of hot peppers suddenly showing up, along with several anaheims. and there's a few green tomatoes on the vines. lots of flowers, though.

the only things that aren't doing well are the eggplants and carrots. i think from a combo of improper soil and too much rain/not enough sun.

[quicksilver]

College cook, I hate hearing about chemicals. so I'm sorry you didn't ask us first.
Black plastic would have been enough, especially since you're not planning on planting this year.
Read the back of your bottle (because I can't remember)

for the time period before you can plant again. And then plant some legumes. Even if you don't like them. Give them away if you have to. But then, when the plants die back (or your tired of looking at them, wack them down to the ground and cover with black plastic) in the fall, work that plant material into the soil, and in the spring, you'll have better soil to plant in.
Sooner or later, if you don't do something with that area, something's gonna come up anyway, and before spring. So without the plastic or legumes, your going to have to do maintainence again.

[larry_stewart]

im excited because i just came home from work, did my daily check of the garden, to see that my cranberry plants all have many cranberries on them. I just planted them this year so i was a little surprised to see so many. Hopefully i can get enough to make homemade-homegrown cranberry sauce this year

[miniman]

I picked black currants & raspberries today - over a pound of raspberries - so we going make a pot of jam. My early potatoes are also ready & are very tasty.