Garden Update: May

Ok, so I know it’s June… Life has been so busy around here. As the days warm up and get longer, it’s a race against time to get all the plants in the ground. The summer solstice is coming and then after that the days will start getting shorter and all the plants will put an enormous amount of energy into producing flowers and fruit, sizing up tubers and roots and generally getting ready for winter. Doesn’t that sound crazy when we’ve only just begun to really feel the heat?

We recently harvested all of my favorite spring veggie, the strange looking and oh so delicious kohlrabi. If you love broccoli stems it’s like having the sweetest, crunchiest, broccoli stems. These awesome veggies barely make into whatever they are supposed to be added to. I end up eating most of it as I am cutting it up.

We had a bindweed infestation. It is an alien weed possessed of evil powers. For a week we dug and double dug out bindweed on hand and knees searching of ever piece of root we could. Removing buckets and buckets of vines and roots. It takes years of hand digging out bindweed to remove it. It grows even under black weed fabric and can hang out deep underground. It loves hot and dry conditions and wet conditions too. The picture above was taken after we finally called it quits and could take no more. Guess what, as we shaped the beds we found more pieces of bind weed. There’s always bucket around to throw pieces of bind weed into.

But finally we got to planting the last of the summer crops! Peppers and melons, squashes and basil. Oh and eggplants too. Now we can finally take a little breather. However, a breather just means there’s now space for all the other things, like harvesting and drying herbs for medicine, Nettlesome soaps and for eating.

Here’s some extra fun for those of you who love looking at beautiful plants!

Have a wonderful week!