How Does Your Edible Garden Grow?
The edible garden is growing like mad. Strawberries are blooming, peas are growing taller, fennel bulbs are fattening up, lettuces are growing fuller and rounder…
The peppers however are not appreciating our cool, rainy spring so far. They’re doing OK, but will be happy when the weather finally warms up.
How’s your edible garden growing? Anything loving or hating your current weather?
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Spring Poppies
The bright spring poppies started blooming last week. They used to grow throughout the front foundation garden, but I’ve slowly been reducing their numbers and letting them grow in one specific spot. They are allowed to grow and bloom at the base of the rock wall below the living room windows.
I think buds are just as pretty as the flowers actually, their gooseneck shape is stunning, especially with the low evening light. This area should be aflame for the short season they bloom. To be honest, orange isn’t my favorite color when it comes to flowers, I’m also not a fan of super vibrant flowers. My favorite blooms definitely are more pastel and range from purple to white.
What’s blooming in your garden right now?
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Friday Favorite: My Mom
If you’ve been reading here long, you know that my mom is an avid gardener. She cultivated my love of gardening from an early age. Whenever she went to the greenhouse to get annuals for the flowerbeds, I was allowed to pick out a six pack to plant. When we ordered seeds for the edible garden, we were each allowed to choose some variety of vegetable to grow (I remember always choosing something blue for some reason). When I lived in Ohio we cultivated an edible garden space in her yard together.
My mom battled breast cancer six years ago, it metastasized to her bones last year. She was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer last September, after discussing various options she decided she only wanted palliative care. Her last 8 months of life were good, considering what she was fighting. Her battle with cancer ended on May 19th, four days after my parents celebrated their 46th wedding anniversary.
She lives on in the gardens, both at her house and in mine. My garden is filled with plants I got from her, her garden is filled with plants she got from me, both of our gardens contain plants we got from her mother’s garden. We enjoyed gardening together, we enjoyed visiting gardens together. She will be sorely missed.
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A Covered Experiment
I’ve been growing brassicas for years and always dealt with the cabbage worm. In Ohio I had loads of wrens and parasitic wasps so they never got too bad. The only time they were a bit of an issue is when the brassicas were small and the wrens hadn’t arrived yet. Here in Maine the story is the same, tiny brassicas can be decimated by these caterpillars. I’ve heard about using insect barrier fabric or agribon and decided to give it a try this year.
Mostly I did it to keep the wild turkeys away from my brassicas, they can mow down a patch much faster than a few caterpillars. I also thought the slight temperature mitigation a layer of agribon provides might just help the plants grow a little faster. When I took the agribon off after a few weeks I noticed a HUGE difference in the size of the brassicas. These plants were transplanted at exactly the same time and both were treated exactly the same except that one was covered with agribon and the other was not.
As you can see, the first photo is the brussels sprout plant that was under the agribon. It’s huge and has zero caterpillar damage. The second was the plant outside, it’s small and has some caterpillar damage. I’m guessing the increased warmth helped the plant grow much larger, it also didn’t have to deal with pest pressure either. The plants are all uncovered now, but they are big enough to withstand some damage from pests. Let’s hope the wild turkeys respect the fence I put up and stay out.
Have you ever using physical barriers to protect brassicas or other plants from pests?
