With the onset of summer - and attention moving from spring to summer harvests - it's a good time to reflect on successes and failures or disappointments to date...


Main garden preparation - I wish I had dug up and prepared the back (lettuce/greens) rows earlier, to get more harvest in before the heat and inevitable bolting.  


Early garden layout - mixing beets, greens and lettuce in wide rows worked great.  As usual, weeds come in quickly and I am not disciplined enough to keep up with them.  Slugs were a bit of a problem as well.



Lettuce - I should have started the seeds earlier, but it was a good lettuce harvest, and I liked the mix of different varieties.  


Beets - starting them inside then transplanting into plug flats worked spectacularly!  We were delighted with an excellent harvest, and in fact, enjoyed the beet greens just as much as the beets themselves. I think I will skip Chioggia next year.


Red Russian Kale - it is easy and productive, but we just don't eat much of it, so this will be a pass for next year.


Swiss Chard Bright Lights - we ended up with 9 plants, which is about right - but it got a late start, so I will grow it in containers in the back yard next year.  We love that first Chart Tart of the spring!


Radishes - spectacular failure for the second year.  We end up with lovely tops, but only about 10% actually form decent radishes.  I give up!


Asian Greens - just wonderful, but I over-planted.  Broccoli Rabe (Italian, not Asian, of course) was a winner and I will plant more next year.  Red Choi, Kotsume, Savoy and the Red and Purple Mustards worked great, and transplanted well.  We ate lots of great sauteed greens.  The only one I would skip is Magenta Spreen - took a long time to germinate and grew very slowly - and Upland Cress, which we didn't care that much for.  


Garlic - planting it in the late fall and harvesting it in late spring/early summer the following year worked great - it was an easy, productive and trouble free crop.  Ajo Rojo wasn't as vigorous, and the bulbs not quite as big, as German White....which we will focus on next year.  A winner of a crop!  Here it is in late June and we have lots of the German one to dig yet - they are nice and tall with great looking scapes.


Potatoes - They were easy to plant, and since they are just blossoming and still in vigorous top growth, I have no idea how they will turn out.


The next update will involve Summer Squash, Cucumbers, Basil, Bush Beans, and Tomatoes.....

Finally, I found the energy to dig holes and plant more tomatoes - these are toward the rear of the big garden, where the lettuce and beets grew early in the spring.  


Here is what was planted today:  


Back Row:


Ozark Cherry, Green Zebra Cherry, Tommy Toe, Red Zebra, Purple Haze, Reinhart's Red Heart, Malschor Isura, Kosovo, Isis, Large Lucky Red, Yellow Bell, Dr. Carolyn's Pink, Randy's Rusty, Caitlin's Lucky Stripe, odd string like foliage (a trait that pops up now and then in the Lucky Cross line), Randy's Brandy, Lillian's Yellow Heirloom


Just in front of that (it is a kind of double row)


Sungold, Yellow Pear, Caitlin's Lucky Stripe, Japanese Trifele Black, Stokes County Pink, Eva Purple Ball, White Queen, German Johnson, Striped Sweetheart, Amazon Chocolate, 1884 Purple, Green Giant, Hege German Pink, Randy's GRBL Cross, and Randy's Crimson


And a row in front of that:


Angora Orange, Reinhard's Green Heart, Portuguese Paste, Harmony Cherokee purple, Portuguese Heart, Reinhard's Chocolate Heart, Portuguese Beef, and Reinhard's Purple Heart.  Once we are done with some greens and radiccio on that row, in will go Reinhard's Yellow Heart, Meme de Beauce, Irish Pink, Brad's Black Heart, Fish Lake Oxheart, Hay's, St. Colombe.


For the most part, the tomatoes are above are either for fresh seed or evaluation (new varieties to me, quite rare - or the result of recent breeding work by others).  I am not going to be fussy with them or baby them, though I did fill the holes I dug with "good stuff" (Miracle Gro potting mix plus Composted cow manure).  After that, it is mulch, stake, tie and water...and crossed fingers that the inevitable diseases stay away until I can get some fruit from each.


Today I also mulched two grow bags of potatoes (an experiment) - a few days ago I dug the rest of the Ajo Rojo garlic and planted a double row of bush beans.  So, all in all, the garden is 90 plus % planted, and it is all about maintaining, documenting and picking.


We are now harvesting blueberries, garlic, squash, and cucumbers.  The potatoes are flowering, as are the first row of beans.  Basil is OK to pick.  The tomatoes in the driveway are setting fruit, as are the sweet and hot peppers, and eggplant are blossoming.  I've replaced a few Dwarf seedlings that didn't look happy, but all in all, a good start to the season, despite too many days in the 90s!

This is a post I just created at Tomatoville...let's see if I can paste it in here without too many formatting issues.

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Finally (May 21, took some time to get my act together...and the seedlings in the driveway cleared out sufficiently to make room), I made my selections and planted my "big driveway pots". Following - tomatoes and rationale.

Mexico Midget - Sue would kill me if I didn't plant this one in the driveway every year! Plus, omelets, frittatas, pizzas, and salads wouldn't be the same without a handful of them included.
Speckled Roman - love it for the productivity, flavor and the stripes - and for fresh seed.
Yellow Brandywine - it's been quite some time, so for fresh seed, also to compare with Aunt Gertie's Gold head to head
Cherokee Purple - of course; using JSS seed source to see if they've maintained it wee
Nepal - need fresh seed desperately; can link it back to the first time I grew it and loved it in 1988.
Cherokee Chocolate - of course
Tiger Tom - need fresh seed desperately, and for a tasty early salad tomato with bite
Cherokee Green - testing the JSS release against my expectations
Caitlin's Lucky Stripe - a recent selection from Little Lucky....will it be true to what I selected?
Sungold - of course, and another cause for Sue murdering me if it isn't in the driveway. Problem is she eats them before I can get to them!
Green Doctor - from Victory, hoping it to be a nice indeterminate green cherry (something that Green Grape for me is not)
Orange Strawberry - it's been years, fresh seed badly needed, wanting to see how it does in a large pot. Loved it the only year I grew it.
Berkeley Tie Dye - for fresh seed, and a fair evaluation.
Lucky Cross - of course
Buckeye State - from Victory - want to compare it to the Livingston description
Lillian's Yellow Heirloom - of course; can never get enough seed to satisfy my needs!
Aunt Gertie's Gold - to compare with Yellow Brandywine, for fresh seed and to test the hype level
Pink Berkeley Tie Dye- same reason as BTD
Trees Bottom Yellow - for fresh seed, to test it out, and compare - is it like LYH or YB in color?
Large Lucky Red - recent selection from Lucky Cross, was stellar last year, huge PL red (rare) - will it come true?
Sunlucky - from Keith - to evaluate.
Andrew Rahart's Jumbo Red - for fresh seed, and to compare with Aker's WV as a large red (I grew that last year).
Little Lucky - of course. Always seem to be short of seed for this.

And in smaller pots, but still the driveway

Stick - fresh seed...and, just because...
Silvery Fir Tree - ditto
Variegated - ditto
Kimberly - to get a nice non-cherry red early in the season for salads


Whew...that seems to work out just fine and saved me lots of retyping!  

OK...now I am off to plant peppers and eggplant for the driveway pots.  (in between the raindrops!)....

later on....

the rain held off all day - managed to get eggplant and sweet peppers and some hot peppers planted before I ran out of gas.  On tap for tomorrow - the odd and unusual sweet and hot peppers, and perhaps start on the Dwarf tomatoes.

I did take a video, but need to look it over, edit it and load to YouTube prior to posting.  Just a bit of a walk about garden update.

Here are the eggplant I put into big pots today:

New York Improved (green stem - this is typical)
New York Improved (purplish stem - a cross, perhaps?)\
Casper (green stem - typical)
Casper (purplish stem - cross?)
Neon F1
Apple Green
Ripples
Batu
Rosita
Neon F2 (green stem)
Neon F2 (slightly purplish stem)
Orient Express F2 (purplish stem)
Orient Express F2 (dark purple stem)
Rosa Bianca (still too small for the big pot, but got one ready for it)

Sweet peppers:

Hershey F1
Jimmy Nardello
Lipstick
Orange Bell
Purple Beauty
Super Shepherd
Super Stuff
Chervena
Chocolate Bell 
Amethyst
Fire Opal

Hot Peppers:

Fish
NuMex Heritage
Purple Haze
Golden Habanero
Ghost
Malu Miris
Datil
Jamaican Hot Chocolate