Its finally getting hot, and our friends need water. Here is a swallowtail taking advantage of a few splashes. I must remember to splash a little more.
Everything is finally taking off; I'm doing my final harvests on the Fava beans at the moment, both for the table on my second sowing, and for seed on the first sowing. At about 7c per seed, it wasn't really financially viable to keep buying these. But if I can keep some of my crop every year to use as seed for the following year, things should work out. When saving seed, its important to wait until the pod is black and dry (or mostly dry). Next year, if I remember, I'll mix some peas in with the sowing with the idea that the pea tendrils might hold the beans together as a block and prevent them from the odd one flopping around.
The Bush Beans and Runner Beans are starting to come into production, so far it looks like there are no pollination problems, and a bumblebee has found the Runner Bean flowers. However, its been relatively cool up till now, so thats no predictor of summer success. Hopefully the Insuk will live up to its promise and do well in the hot weather as well. Otherwise, I'll have a pretty windowshade, but not much else. Fingers crossed.
Harvesting some lettuce here and there; the small butter lettuce (Tom Thumb) grows and tastes well enough, but it seems to trap a lot of compost/slugs in its leaves and cleaning it is a bit more trouble than other lettuces. I have some "Red Sails" coming in soon with bigger leaves, but after that, its probably the end of lettuce for the season.
The tomatoes are all doing fabulously. Some look stressed (notably "Mr. Stripey", which is very dark with curly leaves), but all are throwing out tomatoes and growing healthily so far. I should be getting the first ones on the table soon, maybe a week or two. I tried one of the "Green Grape" cherries last week, but it was still obviously underripe. Hard to tell on these, hopefully, like "Green Zebra", they'll become apparent when they actually ripen. "Green Zebra"has a nice yellow background to the green stripes when ripe.
The Zucchini are finally into harvest season; I have been taking and cooking 2-inch stubs recently, because they werent growing fast and the plants were just throwing these out 2 and 3 at a time, none of them getting anywhere fast. But now they are settling down and beginning to produce 6-inch ones that expand as normal (Day 1: pollinate, Day 2: to 4 inches, Day 3: harvest at 6 inches in the morning).
Last night I planted out the bean plants in pots, as the roots were bunching up at the bottom of the posts and the first real leaves were unfurling. Hopefully most of the slugs have packed up for the summer. The beans all had problems germinating, but I think I have it worked out; after a couple of hot days I got a flush of new seedlings, so I think they really need heat - say, 65-70 degrees - to germinate. Next year I think I should wait until we have warm weather before sowing. Warm as in impossible-to-stay-out-too-long warm. The garden is finally looking full, now my only question is where the heck do I put my multicolored cherry tomatoes? I sowed them later on a whim, they're planting size now, but not much space available. Under the Runner Beans so they too can climb the wires? Among the roses? Should I harvest the last of the Favas and use that space for 4 of them?
Decisions, decisions...
Going through my phone, I came across this picture of the leek bed in winter. I guess its a reminder to sow leeks for next winter.
