Amazon to the rescue - I ordered a second tomatilla plant which will arrive in a week or two  -pollination issue on tomatilla - solved!

Bed 3:
Chard and rhubarb


Peppers, lime basil, yard-long beans and a few left-over sweet potato seedlings.


Onions, snow peas, and in the lower left, the oca is finally starting to make an appearance.  I had to look it up online - It was so scraggly I almost pulled it as a weed twice!


More of the variety beets in the front, radishes and turnips in the back.



Sweet potatoes - all potatoes now showing healthy growth, including the Stokes Purple (front)


Yellow straight neck summer squash.  No flowers yet, but the plant is looking good.


The zucchini has started flowering.  As part of the annual vine borer wars this year I am injecting the stem with bt every week.  It got it's first shot yesterday with no apparant ill-effects.


Garlic, cucumber, and butter beans.

I'm really impressed with how vibrant everything looks, you're doing something right.

Good luck with the VB this year, I hate the little bastards. We've purchased some BT this year too, are you on any particular blend/schedule?

My squash and zucchini are the opposite of yours.
Both look great but my squash is blooming and the zucchini isn't.

Thanks!  I am trying 1cc of this stuff, once a week:

How many squash/zucchini plants do you have in this year?

Four squash and two zucchini.
This is my first season planting zukes.

A


I've got 50ft of squash and 40 of zucchini.  My name is HKH and I have a problem. I just carry it around and give it away.  I think I do this due to the fact that that is what my grandfather did.

Yep you have a problem.
You don't happen to live on a road with decent traffic do you? If so you need a veggie stand.

Yes, yes you do.    On the other hand, there is something really appealing about a plant that produces that much food.  

Don't plant Burpee Pic-n-Pic hybrid or you will be harvesting daily.
Unless you really like squash.

Don't get me started. My wife makes the best zucchini bread.

ETA: and cucumber bread.

Appreciate it.  I'll try the same schedule this year and we can compare notes in August.

Looking forward to some zucchini bread

Good luck!

I have never tried cucumber bread.  Would your wife mind sharing the recipe?

Thanks!  I will take all the luck I can get!    Good luck with yours as well.

One of my goals this year for the garden was to provide as many fresh sides for dinner for 2 as possible, spread over as long a season as possible.  

Even though the recipes online stated kholrabi greens could be used like cabbage I found them tough as old boots.  With that in mind I went ahead and discarded the leaves, keeping the bulbs.  The bigger rounder bulbs had a bit more space and didn't have to stretch for light.  Next year I will plant at 18 inch spacing instead of 12.  Since I am going for bulbs not greenery that should produce the same or possibly more total bulb weight.  I haven't cooked these yet; we will see how it goes.





The last of the spring lettuces.  The other lettuces in the troughs are dying, even keeping them in the shade.  This is enough for a side salad if I suppliement with cucumber, onions, radish, etc.


The sugar snaps are finally coming in well.  I crunched through about half of these immediatly.  :)


The beets could have gone a little longer, but they were starting to wilt in the 90 degree heat:

I like them very much as well. Maybe next year I can place some of those in my yard. My lumber was not treated, and between the deterioration from moisture and a twelve year old using it for axe practice.... they're slowly falling apart.

Awesome, thoughtful setup. Another idea I shall have to steal.

Thanks!  Steal away!  (If I had the space I would steal Kallnojoy's cattle panel as arch trellis idea.  It looks really sharp)  :D

Very impressive set-up

Thank you!  It has taken a few years to get it to work like I wanted.  The raised beds were a lot of up-front work but they have really paid off as time goes by.

The harvest is starting to pick up.  Here is the last few day's worth:

Mellow yellow beans and snow peas.


More snow peas - I only have about 4 plants and they are only about a foot tall but they are starting to crank up the production.  


Swiss chard - I thinned about half the plants to allow the others to get more sun.  


The rest of the minnowase radishes that were left in the bed.

Today's harvest - the first zucchini of the season!


Mellow yellow beans - I have harvested twice off of these, and they still have immature beans and new flowers.  


Brussels sproute - these are forming little sprouts in spite of the heat.  Next time these need closer to 2ft each than 1.  I don't know if the mixed planting helps or the cabbage moths don't like brussel sprouts, but I haven't had any moth issues yet (crosses fingers).  In the past they have decimated my cabbage, and the planting is a little tight for row covers.  I have been trying to compensate by finding brassicas they don't like as much.  That is why I have more things like kholrabi and brussels sprouts, and less things such as cabbage and broccoli.  


Potatoes and lettuce - I am really amazed the iceberg lettuce is still alive.  This bed gets a bit less afternoon sun though and the corn is shading the spot a good bit.  


The corn is edging towards 5 feet - 7 to go.


Tomatoes and cilantro - the cilantro is going to seed (coriander).  The tomatoes are showing a little bit of leaf curl - I am hoping it is just water stress as it has been hot and dry, but I will keep an eye on it.


Tomatilla - the 2 seedling I bought are hiding in the foreground.  


The ground cherry isn't showing any fruit yet.  So far it looks a lot like a vertically-challenged tomatilla.



The potatoe bucket experiment is coming along - once these get a bit taller I will add more material to the bucket and let them grow up again.


Rhubarb and chard.  This is my 3rd attempt at rhubarb - it gets pretty hot and humid here.  Last time I tried a pot on the north side of the house - that one died.  Prior to that I tried a pot on the south side of the house - also died.  This time I have it in the main bed and the combination of soil mass and concrete blocks may actually be working.  It hit almost 90 a couple of times this week and so far the rhubard here looks fine.  


peppers and spare sweets - I already have a section of sweet potatoes and these were just leftover seedlings - I may replace them with an eggplant or something.


parsnips, oca and I think brussels sprouts in the front.  Snow peas and turnips in the back.  This year I am deliberatly planting a bit of this and a bit of that and mixing the plants in hopes of harvesting a wider variety of stuff and (maybe) confusing the insects.  


zucchini


summer squash and sweet potatoes

She's out of town right now. I'll ask her when she gets back.

Did you mulch with fresh wood chips? You do know they can rob your soil of nitrogen.

I know; I plan on amending to compensate.   I tried straw last year and ended up seeding my garden with weeds.    I noticed you are using what looks like pine bark - how has that been performing for you?  I chose wood-chips because I can amend to compensate for the nitrogen, and till it in at the end of the season.  I have been on a quest to find the perfect mulch that:
1.  Will till in/break down at the end of the season
2.  Once tilled in will improve or at least not hurt the soil
3.  Won't acidify or alkalize the soil (much)
4.  Won't add weed seeds to the garden.
5.  Will help keep the soil cool and retain moisture.

You need some chickens to turn loose on the hay before before using it as mulch... heck, they'll even add some "amendments" to it while they're at it!





I can relate though - I've been using compost from a nearby farm that sells great (usually) compost to dress/top-off the garden each spring - this year it was loaded with bermuda seed.  





Hopefully I'll have enough self generated compost this coming year to not have to externally source any.  I've been extra generous with the bedding stray for the sheep and chickens and that's composting nicely.





 

I don't have any self-generated compost, but I usually amend each year with Black Kow.  This year I plan to add some Black Hen - I expect it will do the trick.  If not it won't be the first gardening mistake I have made.  It probably won't be the last either.  

Well, the spring season went really well so far this year.  I have noticed anybody can garden in spring here - decent dirt, enough sun, and stuff is almost kill proof.  Last year as things came out in summer I never did get some of the stuff to survive in their place.  So far I have been growing seedlings to replace the stuff that comes out, instead of trying to seed (all seeding attempts failed miserably last year once the heat arrived).  

I am trying to decide what seeds I can start indoors that
a)  I don't already have growing
b)  Will survive the summer sun
c)  Will produce something in 90 days

Any suggestions from the hive?  I am trying to maximize variety in my day-tot-day harvest - last year I had weeks at a time where only 2 or 3 different things were coming in.  Tomatoes are nice but I don't want to eat them as my only veggie for weeks.

I already have the list below.  I saw some things online that suggests certain varieties of broccoli may survive some heat, but it gets to be 3 digits here so I suspect it will bolt like mad.  The swiss chard is already looking wilted during the day, despite watering and planting them in the darkest spot I could find in the beds.  The stuff with the stars tends to yield it's produce all at once - so it won't do much to help the daily harvest variety.

tomato
eggplant (ichiban)
potato*
sweet potato*
corn*
parsnips*
artichoke -  won't produce until next year most likely
oca*
onions*
garlic*
parsnips*
yardlong beans
winged beans
mellow yellow beans (almost done)
peppers
tomatilla
ground cherry
summer squash
zucchini
cucumber
swiss chard
brussels sprouts
bok choy


Any suggestions from the hive?  I could plant more of the stuff that is already coming out I suppose - replace the mellow yellow beans, etc.  I need to start the seedlings soon for them to be a decent size by the time I start getting more holes in my garden.  Currently my list for consideration:
more mellow yellow beans
butternut squash
more summer squash (in a different location that the early stuff)

Fall season here is mainly a dud - we get early summer, from April-June, and late summer, from July-October.  It doesn't cool off enough to plant cool-season stuff until mid-September, and by then the daylight is waning so everything is rather a crap shoot other than the carrots.  (Ask me how I know )
Like every year, I probably won't be able to resist trying a fall planting, but this year I am trying to work more from early/late than spring-summer-fall.  That and I will start the fall seedling in early August indoors and hope to get enough size on them to let them finish in the time left.

I just looked at your pics from last year and didn't see any..  Will this be your first time trying ichiban eggplant?  Have you tasted it in the past, we love it!

I have never tried ichiban before - I saw it recommended on-line as less bitter.  Since the only time I tried eggplant I was unimpressed I am hoping the variety choice  plus a saltwater soak will change my mind on the resultant purple offerings.  It grows well around here so I thought I ought to give it a try instead of rejecting it out of hand.  Do you have a preferred recipe to help me wet my feet (so to speak) with them?

Thanks for the quick reply!  

I have heard the same things about dinosaur kale.  I am not a fan of kale but I have been slowly stretching my palette a little bit each year so maybe.

I do have a honeydew started - It is slated to (hopefully) go up the trellis once the snow peas come out.  I plan on trying to make slings for the fruit - I have never done this before so it should be interesting.

I have seen Malabar spinach but never have grown it - have you grown this before?  How is the taste?  I saw  on-line that sweet potato greens are supposedly really tasty cooked greens and I thought I might use those this summer - the sweets need to be trimmed anyway and I would rather eat them then throw the trimmings away if they are any good.

Okra grows like gangbusters around here, but it takes a month or two to get started and I run into the biggest trouble July and August.  I could plant it now and be fine but if I wait until then it will die about the time it really kicks into production.  Also the beds are tall enough I end up having to climb onto them to harvest the okra, which gets old after the first few times.

Unlike my wife, I never cared for eggplant (speaking of the globe type) until the summer of 2013 when we had some ichiban.  I was at a friend's house and he begged me to take some ichiban, he and his wife assured me there was no need to skin or soak it like the globe type.  They surprised me,  they have very good flavor.  Thinking my taste buds had changed over the years we grew four ichiban and a few globe types plants last year.  Ended up throwing away most of the globe type or gave them away.

My favorite recipe is to just wash them and cut them in 3/8" slices so they're roughly 3/8 x 1.5 inch round slices.  Dip them in a egg wash with a little pepper then dip them parmesan cheese (provides some salt) and fry in olive oil until they get some nice color.  We'll also use the same method and then cook them like eggplant parmesan.  By frying them in advance their texture holds up a little better.

They're also good sliced length wise and cooked on the grill with some oil, salt and pepper.

This year I'm sure we'll try some asian type recipes just to mix it up a little because we have 7 plants and they produce well.

I know you do your research but it's worth mentioning that it could be a little late to start them from seed if you want summer fruit.  Like tomatoes, they may drop their flowers during the peak summer heat and then resume setting fruit when the days return to the 80s.

Must be reading the same books  We have some in the garden for a trial this year next to some curly leaf and some flat leaf (planted last fall) and they all look great.  It will be interesting to see how they look in late July.

My wife will toss it in a salad but I prefer it cooked with some onions and garlic.

Mine went in as a decent-sized seedling from Lowe's, about 3 days ago.  I am hoping it will have enough time to be interesting.  Our tomato season lasts some years until mid-October, so I think it will be good to go *crossed fingers*.

I just read the recipe for the soup.  That does sound tasty - I may need to grow kale!

I didn't have any kale seeds on hand, so I went ahead and started some waltham butternuts, tenderpick bush beans, and a replacement yellow straight neck summer squash.  The last time I grew the butternuts they only took half a season  - that was one of the empty spots in the summer garden when it came out.  I am hoping it will do as well in the late summer garden this year as it did in the early summer garden last year.  Bush beans tend to produce fairly quickly, and the summer squash is a replacement if/when the current one dies.  

Come August 1 I will start the seedlings for fall with plans to put them in the ground mid-September.   This year I am going to be smarter about my fall choices and check the days to harvest on each of them.  I didn't realize last year how much the days to harvest will extend when the days are shorter and the light is less bright towards fall.  On line reading suggests add a full 2-4 weeks to whatever the package says.

The last few days of harvest.  
Total for the season I have probably pulled a full grocery bag of mellow yellow beans from the 4ftx4ft block and they are still flowering.
The snow peas are winding down and have no more flowers- out of the 4 small plants I got maybe a half grocery bag.  Once the last of the peas are off the trellis space will be used by a honeydew I started earlier.





The zucchini is just starting to ramp up.  Zucchini with dinner tonight!  

Nice harvest.

Thank you.  Hopefully when the heat kicks on for the summer I won't lose everything.  Thanks for sending some rain btw - we were running 30 days or so with nothing prior to yesterday.  

We got rained on again yesterday.
I hope the sun comes out today, the garden needs it.

Sorry to hear it.  Hopefully you will get some sun soon.