Vegetable & Berry Garden Update

For me, today is a perfect day to garden.  It's 68 degrees and cloudy. Yesterday it rained, so the weeds are easy to pull! : )

Since we compost our kitchen scraps and use the compost in the garden, many tomato, eggplant and pepper seeds have sprouted in the garden. Also, seeds from dill and fennel pop up everywhere. I use the tiny seedlings to replace early crops as we use them.  The dill is used for pickles. Swallowtail butterflies lay their eggs on dill and fennel and the caterpillars feed on those plants.

Corn in barrel in foreground.  I had to replant it, since the chipmunks dug up all but 2 of my little plants :(  Now, the emerging seedlings are covered with netting. We don't use fertilizer or use pesticides on our lawn, so you can see all the clover in the grass around the garden.  Honey bees love it!

The pea pods are forming.  Peas were seeded April 30th.  They should be ready to eat in about a week.

Two corn plants from the first seeding, little sprouts from second seeding.

Head lettuce in foreground; buttercrunch in background.  As we eat the lettuce, I try to replace the head with a vegetable plant seedling.  In this case, I found bell pepper and eggplant seedings popping up in the garden that I transplanted into the vacant spots.

Beets in foreground seeded May 6th;  Spanish and Red onions in center; Yellow beans in back row seeded May 14th.  Dill, fennel and tomato plants pop up here and there from the compost in the garden. 

Burpee Hybrid II cucumbers climbing between two trellises, seeded May 14th and just beginning to flower.

Green bell peppers in foreground planted May 24th and just starting to form flowers;  Celery in next row planted May 6th.

These are the San Marzano plum tomatoes set in as plants on May 24th and starting to form fruit.

I'm letting a few common milkweed plants grow wild in the garden to attract monarch butterflies that will lay their eggs on the leaves.  The caterpillars will then feed on the leaves.

Black Raspberry bushes full of berries that should ripen in about a week.

Thornless blackberries flowering and forming fruit.  

Zinnias planted from seed on May 24th.

Rhubarb

Concord grape clusters