Early Summer Garden
My garden has suffered a few setbacks lately. Birds ate my beans. Three times. Raccoons stole into the garden during the night and gobbled up almost all of our snap peas, leaving the stripped pods dangling from the vines.
Two cucumbers inexplicably withered, a bunch of lettuce just bolted, and one of my chickens went on a mini rampage, scratching woodchips into the beds, uprooting a bunch of baby arugula, and generally making a mess.
Sigh.
Luckily, after allowing myself a brief period of despair, I looked around and found lots of things to smile about. Self-sown flowers are popping up everywhere, baby eggplants are emerging, our shelling peas are almost ready, the first zucchini will be ready this weekend, and my peppers, which I forgot to water on a hot day a few weeks back and almost killed, have made a surprising comeback. It turns out, life is good after all.
Hi Willi, I’m sorry for your setbacks but thank you for sharing, it’s very refreshing to read! ‘m experiencing a few setbacks myself, my bumper crop of currants are infested with currant fruit fly – yes, worms in every single berry, this includes my gooseberries that are producing for the first time this year – or were until I had to cut off every berry and dispose of them so the larva don’t burrow into my soil to prepare for next years infestation, that was very depressing. My apple tree is suffering terribly from apple scab, I don’t know what happened to the adorable little figs that appeared on my fig tree early spring, my new columnar apple came with a multitude of pests that I was hand picking daily, I’m still handpicking picking imported cabbage worm almost daily from my cabbage and broccoli, and some little critter is sharing my strawberries – which I don’t mind but if only he/she would stop crushing the plants. …BUT, we’ve been enjoying lots of good food from the garden, and most of the stuff is doing well, and I’m learning a lot about how to deal with all these pests, so I’ll just take it as it comes and try to remember that there is a solution if you’re creative enough! Thanks for sharing your garden, I love seeing what you’re up to on here! I just recently posted some garden picts from spring on flickr. ~Justine
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jdellaringa/sets/72157620028571935/
June 24th, 2009 at 4:04 pmEvery year is different. I re-learn that every year. Sorry for your losses, but clearly you’re having successes as well! Did you reseed your cucumbers? I’ve seeded them this late in years past and still gotten fruit from them, so give it a shot, right?!
I’ve been seeding bush beans of all sorts of varieties every few days for weeks upon weeks now. Hopefully, you will continue as well. The darn things are so easy to do as succession plantings…as long as you can get ahead of the birds!
June 24th, 2009 at 4:23 pmI totally hear you! My cats ate my green beans before I could bring the seedlings outside. Then I tried to plant more seeds in my garden two weeks in a row in Washington, DC and we had crazy flash flooding. Finally after a fourth try I have the baby plants growing. I don’t know if it’s too late in the season, but it’s worth a shot.
June 24th, 2009 at 6:08 pmLove your blog, Katie
Yes, we’ve had a wild bunny living in our garden lately. All of my carrot tops have been munched on. My first row of beans didn’t come up at all, so I replanted a few times. Now we are going to have tons of beans – yum! Your garden looks wonderful. Love your garden photos, beautiful sunflowers and eggplant. I enjoy your blog! connie
June 24th, 2009 at 6:21 pmWilli – are you using some sort of macro lens on your digital camera? Gosh, you get some great tight shots of your garden bounty (love the onion flower). Love your work here. Thanks. Linda Logan, Oklahoma
June 24th, 2009 at 7:03 pmRock and roll! What I mean is, you get rocked and you just have to keep rolling- that is what I’ve been telling myself all this spring after a few setbacks. It is actually nice to hear even a pro struggles!
June 24th, 2009 at 7:51 pmI had a cute little family of birds eat every single seed I carefully placed in the ground this spring, only I realized about a month later when nothing sprouted and a recent second sowing under bird netting was completely successful! I’m so far behind, I think my spring seeding is now in winter garden territory- the horror! But it is still pretty cool watching these guys go. Love your blog!
Never mind the birds… I would like to eat my beans. I live up in Vancouver so my climate is similar but my beans are doing very little. They are only about 8 inches tall. Maybe they’re getting too much shade from the brussel sprouts (man are those things big!)
June 24th, 2009 at 8:15 pmWhen did you start your beans?
Gosh, sounds like my garden in Bellevue Wa! Had problems with the beans and peas but after replanting they are up and growing well! My peppers and eggplants are slow but look healthy and FINALLY the tomato plants look great and are setting fruit. YIPPEE! The big surprise today while picking lettuce for dinner were the little red raspberries peaking out from under some big heavy branches. I didn’t expect them so soon! I added the small handful to our dinner salad and enjoyed everyone! Hannah, I started my beans (again) about 2 or 3 weeks ago.
June 24th, 2009 at 8:34 pmThanks for sharing! It helps me to not take my own setbacks to seriously when I hear about what is happening in other gardens. Your sunflowers look lovely.
June 24th, 2009 at 9:04 pmIt is always sad when you lose your plants. Kate over at Gardening Without Skills is starting a GB Death Day for the end of the month. She has lost so many plants, she just has to laugh at it all. I had to rip up one of my basil plants recently. I wish I had taken a photo of it before hand so I could post about it. At last your sunflowers are beautiful. They are so sunny they must put a smile on your face every time you see them.
June 25th, 2009 at 4:49 amWow, Willi, lovely pics!!
June 25th, 2009 at 6:05 amit’s so reassuring somehow to hear about the losses. i was thinking maybe it was only me– this is my first year in a long time trying to have a garden, and the losses are devastating. sunny space here in my yard is hard to come by and when all the broccoli is chewed to nubs overnight i want to cry. but there’s no shortage of greens and the squash looks good, so thanks for the reminder to look at the bright side. when my peas (sown far too late, alas) failed to produce flowers, we ripped them out and ate braised pea vines and they were pretty darn good.
June 25th, 2009 at 7:32 amWe have a chicken wire fence surrounding our garden, or else the neighbor’s cats and the squirrels and rabbits (including one baby bunny) would have gorged themselves. Our casualties were any squash related seedling that resembled a worm (zucchini, cantaloupe, squash etc), which were promptly pecked to death by the birds. We ended up buying all squash family from starter plants, and are now thriving.
Our sunflowers are blooming, too. Yours are beautiful!
June 25th, 2009 at 9:14 amHi Willi,
June 25th, 2009 at 1:19 pmBaby eggplants, zucchini and sunflowers!!! It like you’re in a different climate from me even though you’re just up the hill. Sorry for the losses…pesky chickens! Good thing they’re cute. Revel in your bounty. Nice photos!
I have to echo Kerrie’s sentiment that as a novice, it’s so comforting to read that others are having issues as well. I am choosing to look at it as a learning experience and am documenting my mistakes as reminders for next time. On a positive note, it looks like I may actually have tomatoes this year! Small miracle.
June 25th, 2009 at 5:40 pmGorgeouos. Would have been great if you added titles for the photos for those, like me, who don’t know what half those plants are…
June 25th, 2009 at 8:24 pmIt’s this fickle Seattle weather. I hope it changes after the 4th of July!
June 26th, 2009 at 11:34 amMy dogs trampled my lettuce…AFTER I fenced off my beds.
I’m switching to containers for the delicate stuff.
Love your gardens, thanks so much for sharing!
I’m trying to figure out how to go about transplanting some squash I bought as plants and then accidentally put in soil that is probably too acidic (I’m a newb, and haven’t had time to test my soil yet). But thrilled by the peas! Next year I plan to just SWARM my yard with pea plants! So easy, so good, and so much yield! Finally got some lettuce to take after 5 tries, too. And my plans for next year are growing . . . trying to figure out the most efficient way to tackle the realistic parts. I will be so busy this fall doing landscaping work!
June 26th, 2009 at 4:02 pmDear Nurit-1 family.friendly.food: If you hover your mouse over the pictures you will get a short title about the picture which should give you some information to go on!
My cursor turns into a little Mickey Mouse glove when I hover on a picture. Hope that helps.
June 29th, 2009 at 1:52 pmOh so pretty. I showed your sunflowers to my daughter, Bear. You are ahead of us. Ours are just beginning to unfurl. My garden has had some veggie setbacks too. Frustrating, but I guess to be expected. Sigh. I do have some very pretty eggplants, and I just saw the beginnings of a zucchini in spite of the squash vine borers.~~Dee
July 1st, 2009 at 6:52 am