Spring Is Still Springing

The variety in summer harvesting begins among the last artichokes, with Tomcot apricots, Arctic Star nectarines, several varieties of beans (Contender, Emerite, Roc d' Or, Royalty Purple Pod, and Early Spanish Musica), and tomatoes (Stupice and Chocolate Sprinkles). Over the years' trying different bean varieties, I've made sure to choose only stringless varieties since I gather a few of every variety as it develops and don't want to have to keep "string" and "not string" varieties apart when preparing for cooking. My husband prefers some of the bean varieties raw to cooked. Purple-pod varieties are handy for the beginning cook, since the purple turns green at the moment that they're ready to stop cooking!

This volunteer tomato came up after watering the Kishu tangerine, so as I'll continue watering the Kishu, we'll see how delicious or not the volunteer tomato is!

Swiss chard is definitely a year-round grower. Snapping off the elongated stem encouraged lots of new side shoots of tender foliage that'll keep producing as long as I keep watering (easy since I'm "really" watering the tomatoes I planted on either side of it) and harvesting.

Violette de Bordeaux fig bears its first fruit in clusters.

Conadria fig is a heavy producer.

This is an "on" year for my Fuyu persimmon, following last year's sparse fruiting.

Some of the last carrots. Unless you keep them well watered, the coming heat will concentrate the "turpentine" essence of carrots, making them unenjoyable for eating.

New shoots emerging from nodes below where I'd trimmed an over-extended plant.

Clear red alstromeria got a bit sunburned (those white swaths at its petal edges).

Bean blossoms and young beans.

Limonium - Statice, Sea Lavender makes a long-lasting dry-flower bouquet.

Grapes enlargening from my previous blog.

Stock - the original single-petal and very fragrant - self-sows freely which I love in my garden along with the also-free-seeding feverfew.

     When I was a kid, I hated “May Gray” and “June Gloom” because it was so dreary, and I wanted “Summer Sun” to brighten and heat up my days so I’d have the excuse to go to the beach or at least lay out on my dichondra lawn listening to my favorite pop tunes on the radio. 
    Now that I’m an “experienced” gardener who prefers to not endure the heat and brilliance while playing in my garden, I appreciate the still-cool temperatures and overcast skies that mean I can do some additional sowing and transplanting and watering and harvesting and trimming and weeding – all the while knowing that the plants are also thriving because the weather is mildly warm enough to spur growth but not blazing hot enough to stress them.  Of course, that scenario is yet to come. 
​     So, enjoying being in the garden now is all the more precious.  Especially when I come into the kitchen with a bucketful of edible treasures.  Yum!
     With this year’s additional mandates of lessened water supplying our gardens, the resulting stresses for both plants and people aren’t welcome in addition to the uncomfortability of the too-hot blazing sun during our summer. But we can shift our timing and techniques to better serve ourselves and our plants:

• Provide soil and amendments with lots of nutrition and organic matter to enable plants to develop extensive root systems and bear plentiful flowers and fruit.
• Sow seeds and transplant growing plants only when air temperatures promise to stay below 90 degrees for at least a week and preferably longer.  As we move into summer, this window of opportunity lessens, so do this as soon as possible.  Coming weeks may put too much of a strain on plants trying to get established during those stressful times – and even if they do start thriving in the next couple of weeks, they may not ultimately mature and produce much fruit and flowers if the weather turns so extreme.  Because of this, planting in June is really a hit-or-miss prospect based on hope that the weather will stay satisfactory.  In gardening, there’s always hope – and also the realization that the magic may or may not work!  But then, at least, you've learned something new about trying to push the seasons!
• Group plants according to their needs for water.  For example, tomatoes need lots of water, but lavender and rosemary need very little water.  If you plant them together, everyone will be unhappy.
• Water in the evening through early morning to lessen evaporation due to breezes.
• Provide water through soaker hoses or drip irrigation systems that release water at soil level, or buried containers with holes that release it underground directly into the rootzones.
• Water long enough for the water to reach down to the bottoms of the individual plant rootzones.  For example, beets and Swiss chard roots can go down 1 foot, but tomato and cucumber and squash roots can extend to 2 feet deep.
• Water again when soil is only slightly moist 4 inches down.  When air temperatures get above 95 for several days running, you may have to water more frequently.

 
For more to do in the garden, see June’s Monthly Tips
 
For more June gardening in years past, see my previous archived June blogs since 2015
 
For specific major topics on summer gardening, see my homepage links
 
For tomato problems and solutions, see Tomato Growing Problems & Solutions - 6/17/20