Farm Dreams

Homesteading, Organic Gardening, How to Farm, Preparedness, Self-Reliance

My First Garden - Week 14

I know the rest of the country seems to be having a very hot summer, but out here we are still getting nights in the 40s at least once a week. Most of the daytime temps are now in the upper 70s, but a couple days a week are rainy and stormy.

This weather is unexpected and while my brassicas are enjoying it - I started them very late, my heat-loving corn, squash, tomatoes and other plants are very small and struggling. On the bright side, we are eating delicious salads daily as the lettuce and peas are thriving! We are starting to a get a couple of beets now as well.

The strawberries are just coming on, a few weeks later than last year, but I was able to get a small batch of strawberry jam canned yesterday.

The apples are growing, and the onions and garlic are doing well. The potato plants are doing great and are starting to flower. The beans planted with them are being eaten up by something, but they look like they will make it.

The beet greens have been destroyed by something, but it seems to be staying off my lettuce and other plants, so I am sacrificing the beet greens. The beets themselves are growing and doing great.

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Comment by Ellen Peavey on July 13, 2012 at 7:29am: Hi Fern really like your raised beds. While we have the heat we also have the squash bore and millions of slugs. It has been raining here every afternoon for three days, we need the rain for sure and will gladly accept it. We are canning tomato's now 12 quarts so far and 2 five gallon buckets picked yesterday. I'm sure you will be getting the heat soon. Good luck with the garden. We dug up the potato's and planted more green beans, hoping to can more Ellen from Georgia

Comment by Lynn P. on July 14, 2012 at 12:57pm: I like your raised beds too! Here we are mid-July, and our struggling tomatoe plants are finally getting bushy. My herbs garden is finally coming up, as well as the asparagus. Our whole garden looks very "young" in comparison to many others' photos, but we've just started getting nice hot temps with lows into the 50's and 60's over the past 2 1/2 weeks here in the inland NW! This is our first garden here, so it'll be interesting to see how things progress! Oh, and a fat robin ate our first strawberries! We just enjoyed our first mixed greens salad from the garden yesterday, and it was delicious!

Comment by Ellen Peavey on July 14, 2012 at 6:50pm: Hi Lynn that wasn't a good picture at I must have moved when I pushed the button, here are some better pictures. We are in the middle of canning tomato's Ellen from Georgia