It’s time to check in on the edibles in the garden…

Most advanced, of course is the lettuce and spinach.

We’ve already had some of the spinach, and I’ll probably cut some more to throw in a salad this weekend. I’m hoping the weather doesn’t get too hot too fast (though we’ve already had a couple scorchers). I’d like to get the lettuce a little bigger before I try harvesting. Right now the biggest head is probably only big enough for a personal-sized salad.

All of my onion-family are doing fantastic. In the first pic, we have Leeks and Green Onions. they look almost the same right now, but the Leeks will get much thicker. In the second, we have Shallots and Garlic. And as you can see, both have taken off beautifully. I noticed scapes just starting on the garlic – we’ll be harvesting in about six weeks! Hard to believe it!

My experiment of using grocery store potatoes as seed potatoes seems to be working. Those bare patches are a few that have been slower to sprout… but they are starting!

My carrots had me a little worried… but it was probably just impatience. They have all sprouted now and are starting to get true leaves. I planted a whole bed this time, instead of just half. These are Dave’s favourite treat from the garden, so I need to have LOTS!

His other favourite is the beans, but I went smaller on those this year. The past two years, I’ve planted up and entire raised bed with them and we end up with way, way too many. We found this big plastic tub while thrifting this year. It’s probably 1/3 of the size of the raised bed, and I think it will be the perfect amount of beans. They just started to sprout this week, but if you know beans… they will grow FAST!.

A new treat for Dave this year is sweet Green Peppers. I wasn’t planning on it, but he noticed them at the garden centre so I said we could give them a try. I’ve tried before with poor success… but our neighbour grows beautiful sweet peppers so maybe I can get some tips from him.

Honestly, most of the edibles in the garden are grown for Dave…

I’m glad I planted out multiple of my tomato seedlings because as you can see… one is doing much better than the others. It was a good way of hedging my bets. I will probably pull the smaller ones once I’m sure that one in the middle is going to take off. I don’t need more than one tomato plant as I don’t eat them at all. While Dave likes them, he eats them sparingly because the acid bothers him. These are yellow pear tomatoes to help with that… but he still won’t eat a billion of them.

Almost all my cucurbits have sprouted…. on the left we have gourds at the top, and cucumbers at the bottom. We have two types of cucumbers this year…. Summer Dance, which I grew last year, and a new one I picked up a garden centre – Lemon Cucumber! They don’t taste like Lemons, but they look like them. I thought they were fun.

On the top right, we have baby pumpkins (in white, black and orange just like last year), and Celebration squash, also like last year. I’m hoping I can stay ahead of the squash bugs this year and actually get some squash I can eat!

Elsewhere…

We have one teeny tiny Cucamelon sprout. You will remember my Cucamelons from last year. I had so much fun picking them, I decided to plant them again. However, like beans, we were also overrun with them, so I planted few plants, in a smaller pot with a little wire trellis. They need more heat to really get going, but it’s nice to see a sprout regardless.

The only thin that hasn’t sprouted are my zucchini. But I planted them a little later than everything else so I’m not panicking yet.

My Sugar Baby melons are slow to progress, but like the cucamelon, they need a lot of heat. I’m optimistic they will take off in the next few weeks.

My snap peas, however, are romping away. On my to-do list is getting their strings up so they can climb nice and tall. The peas I plant for me. Dave rarely gets any because they don’t make it in the house.

Of course, it’s not just veggies.

The raspberries seem especially lush this year and are already covered in buds.

The blackberries are too. I planted them late summer last year, so this is the first year we will have an berries.

And as for the strawberries

Both the plants in the raised beds and new fence planters are covered in flowers and berries. In fact, they are already starting to ripen….

But you’ve got to get to them fast…

Because I’m not the only one who wants a nibble!