Garden Update

It's amazing how much things have changed in the 10 days since I was last in the garden. It feels like I missed out on the last part of spring, and stepped out into summer! The past few days have been in the 70's, but throw in the blazing sun on my south facing concrete garden, and my soil's temps are around 85 at the peak of the day.

I spent a large part of my free time (ie the LO's nap) outside yesterday cleaning up, and clearing out. Here's what's goin' on...

I hilled up my 1st round of Russet mini's. They're already almost to the top of the bucket! I may need to come up with a way to extend the bucket's height. Maybe by cutting off the bottom of another bucket and attaching somehow. Any suggestions?  The rest of my potatoes are slow-going thus far... 

The left side of my SFG: Garlic, onion, shallots. I've trimmed all of the alliums several times over the growing season, and they look wonderful, don't they?

Close up of the shallots...

Yeah, above ground, they're pretty, but these two shallots (from one seed) are what they looked like when I pulled them out. I don't know what went wrong here. I even fertilized them once--maybe twice with a diluted solution LOL.  I also pulled a garlic plant, and it looks the same.

I'm feeling a little defeated by the alliums because I planted them back in October, and they should be ready around now. Either way, I'll have to pull them in a few weeks to make way for my tomatoes.

The right side of the SFG growing the peas and broccoli... I don't know why, but the left two broccoli plants grew very large, but not a SINGLE florret grew on either one of them! What the heck?

My peas are becoming infested with aphids. I think it's due to the heat and the compact space. I also have carrots squeezed in between the broccoli and peas, so in an effort to get the peas and carrots to mature, and because I was tired of the broccoli not producing, I pulled the broccoli...

Here is my last brocooli harvest of the season.

My lettuces in the salad table bolted some time last week. *sigh* This was my most productive part of the garden this season, so I'm really sad to see it go. I've cleaned out the lettuces, and moved the table to a shadier, cooler part of the yard to see if my carrots will mature. I pulled one, and it's the length of my index finger, but as skinny as a pencil. Here's hoping they'll fatten up a bit!

 I've decided that this coming fall I will probably either grow only lettuces or a combo of lettuces and cover crops to improve my raised beds soil.