First Day of June

Here's a photo of one of last year's "Iris Bed Designers" who rearranged them last summer. I know he is admiring his handywork!




Hail damaged sweet basil...

First Royal Purple bush bean seedling for the season. There are a few more that were snipped off, so I am thinking something ate them. I may have to lightly cover that area with some pulled weeds so the seedlings are not as visible.

Some of the sunflowers are now a foot tall. Others planted later or in less ideal locations are not as tall or robust but seem to be doing ok, too. Not sure why some sunflowers haven't germinated at all. The weeds, of course, continue to flourish!

We are definately behind last year in planting things out. The long, cold spring did not inspire one to set plants out too early this year. The tomato planted a month ahead of everyone else does not appear to be appreciably further along than the ones I planted out last week. Of course, the peas loved the spring this year.

One of the nice things about having a large garden as opposed to a small farm is that it only takes 15 minutes to plant out a bed of beans and there are no tractor requirements. And only 15 minutes to plant out 3 tomato babies.

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Done so far today

• Planted a whole pack of Pensil Pod Yellow Bush Beans - about 120 seeds
  
• Planted a Red Pear tomato and a Sweet Baby Girl tomato plant in raised bed 3 (where the garlic is ripening)
  
• Planted a Yellow Pear tomato to the east of the Rescue Apple tree
  
• Dead-headed spent iris blooms
  
• Watered everything
  
• Pulled a 5 gal bucket of weeds and added to the top of the compost pile
  
• Took pictures
  

Survived the Hail

I was so bummed over the shredded irises that I decided to post some pre-hail photos of them to cheer me up. Luckily, the plants themselves are doing fine. And it looks like the buds that will bloom in a few days are also fine.
Don't know the name of this one, but it is a lovely blue color. It could be "blueberry", but I may never know as all the ID tags went bye-bye when the dogs started pulling them out last year. Thank goodness for fencing (and thank God for a husband and son who like to build fences!!!)!

Among the plants that were not phased by the rain, hail and cold were the peas. Moments after taking this photo, I ate this one! Crunchy, sweet, yum!

Surprisingly, nearly everything did OK with the hail. Probably because, even though it hailed three days in a row, the hail actually only lasted 5 or 10 minutes each time and was promptly melted by reasonably warm rain. In fact, the trees are looking possitively lush with all this water they've been getting. Much better than I can do with a hose.

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• Five tomatoes in the ground
  
  
  
  • Tomato Vera (hollow, "pepper-like", tomato)
    
  • Classic Roma
    
  • Red Pear cherry
    
  • Mexico Midget cherry
    
  • Steak Sandwich
    
  
  
• A dozen or so more tomato babies inside under lights
  
• Sugar Snap Peas starting to bloom - and the first few peas already eated off of the vine
  
• Basils
  
  
  
  • All Mrs. Burns Lemon Basil that were in the ground died during the hail
    
  • 2 Purple Ruffles planted - both survived hail
    
  • Mammoth Basil survives
    
  • 2 Genovese Basils survive
    
  
  
• Other Herbs
  
  
  
  • 3 clumps of Lemon Balm - the small ones that were burried under tomato trash have caught up with the one that was cared for - all looking vigorous
    
  • Rosemary sitting around not doing anything - not looking poorly, but not growing - just hanging out and waiting for warm weather, I suspect
    
  • Oregano loves this weather
    
  • Sweet Marjoram loves the weather, too
    
  
  
• Strawberries - some are as big as my thumbnail
  
• About 10% of the garlic have scapes
  
• Sunflowers looking healthy and vigorous - sowed more the other day, but they aren't up yet.
  

Hail at the end of MAY!

Sadness is ... a lovely blue bearded iris shredded by hail - 3 days in a row. Where did the Desert go?! It's supposed to be getting into the 90's by now! Well, at least the basil and tomatoes survived, and the iris plants are all fine - just the flowers look sad. I'm glad I took lots of photos before the storms!