First Harvest

Goliath and I went out this morning to see if we could grab any lettuce for lunch. Wow, what a change the rain makes. I am going to have to start eating salad all the time, or give this stuff away before it bolts. Mom, are you interested? While I was delighted to see all the various lettuces waiting for me, I realized that only about one third of the plants made it from seed. There could be many reasons for this lack of a crop but my guess is that the competing vegetation took over: the dreaded thistle.

Now being part Scottish, I enjoy the thistle symbol, but I don't want to see it all over my yard. And as you can see, they are everywhere. This particular breed is nasty because they see to spread from an underground runner, so even when I pull them out in one location, they are happy to flee to another part of the yard and cause more headaches. We did not mulch this year, and this could be a major source of their success. Just something to remember for next year.

Our other veg plants look great. The broccoli is huge and the squash and cucumbers are already starting to produce immature fruit. I spent some time on Sunday getting the cucumbers to climb the support I made for them. Unfortunately, I forgot about the spiny vines and finished the job with some sore fingers. Oh well, all for the culinary cause. I do not seem to have any eggplants growing and will have to put in transplants next year and not seeds. I also noticed that barely any sunflowers made it. I think they were eaten before they had much of a chance. One thing is for certain, no matter how well Matt cleared and turned the soil to prepare the beds, a lot of the previous plant life has come back. There must have been a great deal of seed activity when we were ripping out plants. Yet another case for mulch.

Our trip back into the house at the wee hours of the morning gave us a nice view of the flowers along the deck before the bumble bees came out to get to work. The purple coneflower seems to have spread itself around quite a bit, but it does add some color in July when I need it most. Well I will leave you for today, be well.