After 10 days away from my garden, I was keen to check in and see how things are coming along.

In a nutshell, stuff is growing! This in itself is a wonderful thing, which I don’t take for granted. I mean, if it were up to my expertise, the seeds I planted would be sunk. Fortunately, they know what to do without much help from me.

The broccoli is growing like crazy without much to show for it. I’m beginning to wonder if I’m supposed to be clipping off the lower leaves to help the plant focus on bearing fruit, so to speak. I’ll have to check into that. In the meantime, after dinner I did discover one floret which will be eaten soon. The book I checked recommended harvesting to encourage more growth, and that’s all the encouragement I need.

A few weeks back I mulched the garden via a couple of found bales of straw. As far as I can tell, the mulch isn’t doing much to keep the weeds out, but I think that may be because it’s not laid out thickly enough. This I can remedy.

My mutant radishes keep wanting to go to seed. I’ve never seen such huge radish leaves in my life! I’ve chopped off countless seed stalks but they just keep coming. A couple of weeks ago I tested one of the radishes, which was long, thin, white (no hint of red in sight) and very sharp and peppery. Yum! But I’m not sure they are “ripe” since they do not resemble any of the pictures on the packages of 3 kinds of radishes I thought I planted. (Adding to the confusion is that the Scientist, in a fit of spring cleaning, seems to have tossed out my lovely, meticulously, handwritten garden map. Oops!)

The kale is coming along nicely, now I just need to find a recipe and try and figure out how to get the Scientist to try some. He’s not really a veggie kind of guy…unless there is butter or sugar slathered on for disguise. He has, however and thanks to my efforts, discovered that he quite likes asparagus as well as grilled bell peppers of all colours. This is progress!

The snow peas are climbing like crazy, and it’s clear I need to get the climber mesh up at the end of plot C before the last ones planted start to topple. The green beans in the far corner, on the other hand, don’t seem to happy. I may need to move them out of that low lying area and into a new spot. Or add some dirt and replant them there?

And finally the bell peppers. Those poor guys have been completely eclipsed by the broccoli and are now completely shaded. When I originally planted, the plan was to keep the smaller stuff in back. Note to self: broccoli grows big, fast. Peppers, not so much.