Life is a bowl of raspberries when you have magic beans!

Our raspberries are so happy now on the south side of the embankment, they are producing whole bowls full of raspberries each day. Rather small bowls, but still a bit improvement from last year when we were each getting a quarter of a raspberry. We are also harvesting our first beans. The girls were not too eager to try the purple beans, but were excited to learn that they turn green when boiled. Magic beans!
My flower beds have become infested with these black and red caterpillars. I am not sure if they are poisonous, or what they eat, but suspect they are up to no good, so I have been gathering them up with disposable chopsticks each morning and dropping them in the river.
Feeling blue.... I planted cornflowers and campanula seeds in all different colors, but only the blue and purple actually grew, so my south flowerbed is a little monotone.
Some of the more colorful flowers are starting to revive in the north flower bed now that that the daffodil leaves have been removed.
First lily...

Catching Up

Here are some random photos from last week (5/20 and 5/22).

This is the west plot. A few of the potatoes in the lower left, green beans, lots of tomatoes, some eggplant, peppers, and sweet potatoes back where my husband is standing.

The artichokes have doubled in size since I took this photo 5 days ago. So have the weeds ):
Peas, peas, peas! I love snap peas! My favorite vegetable. I think we will get maybe another week if we are lucky.
The onions are coming along. We have to figure out where we can hang them to dry.
The three sisters. Two sisters at the moment. The pumpkins are growing, but the corn is not. This could be a problem.
The zucchini is thriving! I am going to pick our first pollinated zucchini for our spaghetti tonight. I will post photos later.
Finally planted the next round of okra on the weekend. Same place as last year, but I think it will be okay. My husband added lots of compost and manure.
The strawberries are doing pretty well despite being in a muddy, shady, weedy, nutrient poor, and generally ignored corner. Some taste better than others. I think we will have to dig them up this winter and do them properly next year.
I was very happy about these pink flowers (Oenothera) I often buy seed packets hoping that they are the same as the flowers I saw by the side of the road or in someone else's garden and 90% of the time I am completely wrong. This time I got it right! I think (I hope)they go wild and re-seed on their own.

Pansies are still plugging along beneath the pink flower leaves.
Our neighbors let their mizuna go to flower. I didn't realize that mizuna made such pretty flowers! We will have to let ours flower next year.
My campanula are really flowering now. I planted a mix of white, pink, and purple, but only seem to have raised purple. Oh well, at least it is my favorite color!

In other Vegetable News...

Wait, you mean there are other vegetables? From reading this blog, you would probably think there was nothing but tomatoes...

But, no, we do have other vegetables. Lettuce is going strong at the moment, but a few are showing signs of bolting. This is one set of lettuce. Also a few late broccoli (which I think are ready to flower even though they are barely an inch in diameter) and some soramame (big beans?) which are being attacked by aphids (I have a close up photo of the aphid problems I will post soon, isn't it nice to have something to look forward to?) Our compost bin is on the left and the small mini tomato patch from yesterday's post behind.

These are other other lettuces and behind them, baby okra. And my husband is thinning! No really! Stop presses! It is a rare event indeed. I was watch a Desperate Housewives episode where Lynette and Tom go to a marriage counselor and she is upset that he is always good cop, forcing her to be bad cop. Well, that's what I sometimes feel like in the garden. When infanticide is called for, I'm the one who has to do the deed. Anyway, here he is, I made him thin his okra and cucumbers himself. These were okra seedlings from the garden store. Salad okra, green and red. I also have some seedlings I started, but haven't planted out yet.
Zucchini is going strong. I planted Black Beauty and Lebanese varieties, and so far the BB seems to be growing faster than the L.

These are the pumpkin seedlings my students planted. Jack o'Lantern on the left and Howden on the right.

Kabocha on the left, then Jack be Little, and Cinderella pumpkins. A few artichokes at the top and bottom. I planted two artichokes near the big tomatoes yesterday, and big pumpkins at the bottom of the embankment this morning. Jack Be Little mini-pumpkins are going to be on a trellis in front of my classroom.

And here are mystery pumpkins which were growing out of the mini-tomato plot. They are the most healthy of all our pumpkins, but we have no idea what kind they are. Last year we had Howden, Cinderella, standard kabocha, and a oval shaped gourd that didn't look or taste very good, but was strong enough to beat back weeds on the embankment. If these are any of the first three, we want to keep them, but if they are the steam roller gourd, we don't. Hmmmm....

Here are baby corn at the bottom of the embankment. We are going to try three sisters this year with corn, vine beans, and pumpkin.We had lovely spinach, but Mr. Must-sow-all-the-seeds-in-the-packs planted them all at the same time and despite my most valiant efforts (spinach for every meal, including breakfast) most of it ended up going to seed.
Cucumbers... Mr-I-won't-kill-a-baby-seedling has an undisclosed number of these hoarded up in curious places around the garden. Oh well, when they are at their peak, we won't be here. If he wants to give himself the cucumber crud again, it is is his choice.
Carrots. He planted them in rows at least this time, but see what I mean about the thinning? I think I will have to give in and be designated murderer again.
Beans...

Onions, peas and potatoes. Just a few potatoes, because M hates potatoes and L is allergic. Well, I said, "Just a few potatoes, okay, honey?" See how he listens to me... I love potatoes, but cooking anything with potatoes means cooking an alternative for the girls. I don't love cooking. But I see a lot of potato cooking in my future. Maybe we should consider a third child. Pregnancy gives me major potato cravings.

The girls check out the potatoes. Do you think Daddy is going try to make us eat all of these??? You're lucky, you're allergic!

Missed the boat

Well, the first 2 weeks of "rainy season" was totally dry and I was worried about drought. Be careful what you wish for they say...Our veggie patches at the bottom of the embankment were surrounded by a moat. The beans and cucumbers managed to stay above the waterline but...
The pumpkin vines and two pumpkins were submerged. The waters had receded by the time I took this photo. I couldn't take the camera out in the torrential rains.
The lawn contracted some sort of fungal infection that is spread by too much water. Wasn't much we could do to stop it.
The rain killed off another tomato plant too (marmande super). I am trying to ripen the green tomatoes in a cardboard box. I have to find a green banana to put in with them. They say to keep them in warm dark place with low humidity. If there were any place with low humidity to be found around here, I'm sure it would be filled with humans, no space left for green tomatoes!

This is the garden next door. I feel a little badly posting it, as I think they must have some difficult family circumstances that have left them little time for gardening this season. But still, their tomatoes, eggplants, and goya are all coming along. Seeing their garden makes me appreciate our black plastic, despite my aesthetic reservations. That said, we are scheduled for more rain from tomorrow, and our garden may be looking like this soon.

vegetables

I am starting new tomato plants from side shoots whenever they escape my notice long enough to get big. I just stick them in fine sand from the sandbox, put them in a mostly shady spot, water them regularly and they grow strong enough roots to transplant within a few weeks. I am planting these new tomatolings in pots because...
though I am still in denial, I am pretty sure my tomatoes have fusarium wilt. Horrors! I have had to pull several plants and several more are looking peaked. This is a Black Krim. I cut off one of the leaf stems today and the inside is not yet affected, but I think it is probably inevitable.
A close up of the stem. Not good, right?
The cucumbers are booming. My husband removed all the baby cucumbers and gave the vines a good trim last week. It is looking like we will be drowning in cucumbers in a few days. The green beans in the foreground are also producing nicely. They have become a new target of the evil orange bugs, but so far are going strong.
The watermelon almost succumbed to aphids in the beginning, but after consistent spraying with diluted dishsoap seems to be making a recovery.
The three remaining zucchini plants are also still producing despite their white bumpy stem disease (I think that is the scientific name for it!)

today's pickings and today's dinner

Our spring veggies have finally reached the point where they constitute a major portion of our dinner. Here is today's harvest. I also ran back to pick toppings (green onions, oregano, thyme, chives) as I was cooking.
We don't grow rice ourselves, but get it from relatives. The onions are from a neighbor. The konyaku (icky-looking gray triangles), mushrooms, cherry tomatoes, milk, tofu, and miso are store bought. And we didn't catch the tuna (negitoro donburi). The eggplant is in the soup and I used one of the zucchinis for tomorrow morning's bread. The girls' dessert of a few raspberries and half a blueberry each was supplemented by loquats from the next door neighbor's tree (some of the branches hang over our yard).

Last day of May

My marigolds, which I started from seed at the beginning of April, are finally starting to bloom!

Blue Flax (linim perenne) is a perennial. Thank you, Mrs. C. for the identification! I'm sure everyone will be pleased not to have to have photos posted every other day of the same flower. I'm still counting on all of you to help me watch my tomatoes grow, though!
My husband is finally going to pull the lettuce which bolted 4 weeks ago and some of it was almost as tall as me! He needs the space for edamame. I will be happy to have the aphid nests away from my tomatoes!
Baby green beans are starting to come in.
They are still pretty small, though. Nice close up of my grimy fingers, too.
The zucchinis sure do grow fast. I think I will harvest this one (our first real zucchini) tonight. This plant seems to have developed some sort of stem rot. I have beenr emoving the infected leaves, and still seems to be intent on producing new leaves and zucchinis, so I hope it will be ok. If not, I have 3 more adult plants and 2 more seedlings, so we should be okay in the zucchini department.