And things are surely looking different!  After a week away camping, we arrived home to find radishes and greens, and also some bolting already.  I guess it got hot while we were gone.  Unfortunately somehow the bunnies have figured out how to get on the beds- or the squirrels are bean eaters, because ALL of my beans are gone.  Just the beans.  (And the parsley.)  At first it was just the blossoms, but now the leaves have been eaten too, and all I have are these little spikes of stem all over- bush beans, pole beans, roma beans, all gone.  I’m sad about that, but it’s not too late to replant if I can get creative with protecting them.

How about some pictures? I’ll post the beds again, left to right.

First is bed one.  My greens are looking great, the tomatoes are healthy, and the kale is looking pretty good too.  I have bird netting over this bed, but I think something got in last night, because one of my red kale plants has a few branches that have been pushed off.   The greens right at the front are broccoli raab, flanked by swiss chard.  The broccoli raab is bolting, so I’m thinking tomorrow it’s going on the dinner table.  Some of the swiss chard and mesclun is going on tonight’s table.  I cannot wait!  After I harvest tonight, I’ll be stapling down the bird netting in a few spots.

Bed two is great, except for the pole beans.  The sweet peppers have plenty of blossoms, and the tomatoes growing on the Florida Weave in the back are looking great.   Right at the front are some radishes.  I’ll be harvesting a few for tonight’s salad too.  Towards the back on the left are my Mizuna and Ruby Red Streaks (a red mizuna).  The red has already bolted, sadly, but the mizuna is ready for harvesting.  Delicious, delicious mustard green.  It adds a fantastic peppery punch to a salad or sandwich.  I will grow both of these again, and am going to try them as a fall crop this year.

Bed three is doing very well.  The hot peppers all have blossoms on them, and the zucchini plant is looking nice and healthy.  In fact, look at what I found on the one jalapeno plant:

The first hot pepper! I sure hope all his cousins and brothers come out to play soon!

And then there’s bed four.  Sorry, it’s kind of a wonky view, but this bed needs some love.  I have a lot that never came up, and of course, there was a lot of beans planted here- along with some snow peas which were eaten by rabbits as well.  To the right you can see my makeshift trellis for the cucumbers to climb up.  I’m also hoping it’s a bit of a rabbit deterrent.  I’m trying to figure out what to do with all the space where nothing is growing.  Any carrots or beets that came up have been eaten.  The watermelon and cantaloupe plant are still chugging along in there though, so we’ll see.

My tomatoes are blossoming and some are showing fruit.  I believe this one is from my Lemon Drop- a yellow cherry tomato plant.   I still don’t think my garden gets quite enough sun- though I see exactly what Andy needs to remove to make it better.  Just a touch more and I think my plants would be loaded with blossoms.  I’m confident I’ll get a respectable harvest this year, my plants are happy and healthy, but another hour or so of sun and they would be burgeoning!

Oh, and then we have the corn and pumpkin patch.  This is doing better than I expected.  This bed has a 3-foot fence around it, and I’ve covered it with bird netting, so nothing’s getting in there.  By the time I have to remove the netting, the corn will not be desireable to the critters.  I hope.

Ultimately, I’m hoping that Andy can find some time in the next few days to build me more of these fence panels.  If they were up on the other gardens, I could use the fairly inexpensive bird netting to keep the animals out.  I’m already making my notes for next year, and am going to plant things differently.  The tomatoes will all be in one bed, the beans in a second, the peppers in a third, and then the fourth bed will be for the greens.  Other beds will receive carrots, beets, and miscellaneous.  For now, I’m just so happy to have a harvest with the greens and radishes, and I’m looking forward to more.

I didn’t take pictures of the herbs yet- my parsley has been eating down to the nubs by rabbits, but everything else is doing really well.  I’ve even had a miracle tomato come back to life.  It literally was snapped off at the dirt line, and a little shoot took off from there.  It’s a respectable small plant now- I don’t know if I’ll get any fruit from it this year, but the little Valiant plant is the little engine that could!