It’s getting to be that time of year. Stuff is growing. Pretty cool. The early stuff that did so well last year (spinach, kale, and broccoli raab) didn’t do so well this year. The arugula did very well, and I’d planned to sow more, but now we’re finding we’re kind of over the arugula. So no more arugula. Some other salad green will take its place, I think.
The neighbor’s peas look beautiful, and I’m coveting them and regretting not planting peas. So next year, some peas, maybe.
We’re still a little ways off from harvesting any of what’s growing now, but most of the plants are looking pretty happy.
See? Happy bush beans.
Happy zucchini.
The artichokes are also looking happy, but they had their eyes closed in the photo. Pole beans are happy. Potatoes, happy. Red onions, happy. Tomatoes, cucumber, eggplant, teeny weeny okra seedlings, happy. (Damn. I didn’t realize quite how much I was slacking on the garden photos today. Sorry.)
What’s not so happy? The lacinto kale and the rainbow chard.
The kale looks fine, but it doesn’t seem to be growing much. The chard has some kind of weird disease going on and I need to just yank those plants all out. I’d wonder if there was something wrong with the bed, but our neighbor’s lacinto kale is also growing very very slowly, but her Russian kale is going nuts. Is lacinto a slow grower? Or not liking the weather we’ve been having?
It would be especially nice if the garden produced well this year, in light of a new project I’ve taken on (and the guys are getting dragged along for the ride). Details in the next post.
I’d have garden envy, but I am way to lazy to garden. Okay, I have it anyway. They look great.
Our chard got a weird disease last year. We tried again, but it was attacked again. We were thinking the same thing, something wrong with the bed. Instead of figuring it all out, it was pulled this past week. Boo!
One thing about your swiss chard – you have the plants bunched together – they do better closer together but further apart if that makes sense. Rows not bunches. If you do rows of 1 plant each, about 4″ apart, with the rows 6″ apart or so. You can thin and transplant them – even when they are bigger than you would expect.
Why do you think they have a disease? Swiss chard is not very disease-prone.
I don’t know nothin about kale but chard? Chard I know.
I was perusing seeds at Portland Nursery this weekend, when somebody brought a diseased chard leaf to the information desk. The guy said it was miner’s blight, and everybody has it this year. I’ve been harvesting two handfuls of snow peas each day. I’m loving them, but also ready for them to be over with and make room for squash.
Looking at the pic a little more closely… I would guess that your kale is too close together also. You can have all those plants, but they need to be 1 stalk each, with about 4″+ of space around them. Greens have dense root systems and are prone to mold/rot if they get too big while they are too close together.
(i am extending my knowledge of general greens to kale – maybe this is not correct :))
our spinach is looking sad. the romaine has taken forever to really take off. the butterhead is gorgeous…
funny how that works, isn’t it? we attempted arugula last year, but after it bolted so quickly, we decided we weren’t arugula people. lol
Hurray for gardens and fresh produce! This was our first year growing from seeds and it hasn’t been as successful as I hoped for. It’s a learning experience though and we’ve filled in the empty holes with store bought plants.
I’m feeling like there’s something wrong with that bed — perhaps a pH problem. I’d try putting some lime on it, as that is often my cure-all.
The garden looks and sounds great. I was going to suggest lime, maybe mulch – not sure how important mulch is in your part of the world, but here in Australia we swear by it. You could use a lucerne hay (maybe its called alfalfa over there). Greens need a ton of fertilizer (eg compost etc) to grow big. The other thing is sometimes plants just sit, and then all of a sudden the get going, so dont rush to pull them out.
It has been a weird growing year. I had things pop up in my garden that I didn’t even know was planted there. Iris and mystery tulips. And my nasturtium that usually does so well is really dragging its little feet.
Well now I’m intrigued.
Whenever it’s a good year for something, it’s bound to be a not-good year for something else. We had exceptional, prolific peas and I’ve got great hopes for the tomatoes.
My kale is behind yours, but growing like crazy. Our broccoli and cauliflower are finally putting out little, tiny heads. Our carrots are sucking and I need to plant the next batch of everything. There is so much lettuce. How many green salads can a family of 5 eat? Apparently not enough. Learning…learning…