June in the Garden
Ripe honey berries. Photo by Tenley Nelson
Tenley Nelson - Featured Columnist
If you know me, you have heard me mention in springs past how behind I am. I am guilty of saying this every single year. It does feel like that when there is so much to do and every to do list has to be prioritized. But this year I have had extra challenges.
Due to the early close to the fall season (snow on Sept. 21), I accomplished zero prep last year for the 2022 season. No beds were weeded, no compost was spread, no tools were organized.
Then with all the winter snow and the late spring it took a while to get going this year. Weeds abounded and prepping beds to plant took far longer than usual.
My third obstacle to getting the garden in on time was coming down with Covid the last week of May. While I was fortunate to have symptoms no worse than a terrible cold, I had to battle through intense fatigue for 10 days during the busiest two weeks of the year when spring hunts coincide with the end of the school year, the start of the outdoor garden, and the work horses coming home for the summer.
Mid May till mid June has been exhausting. While I have been prepping and planting nearly every day, it was not until June 24 that I finished planting the garden. I put in the seed potatoes a whole month late. They were the lowest priority of all the garden crops as they are not for sale, and we can easily acquire Alaskan potatoes if we don’t get a successful harvest. But I am hopeful. If we have a delayed frost this year, I might end up with some.
New potato bed. Photo by Tenley Nelson
Getting in the potatoes was additionally delayed because I broke new ground for them. I am moving the current greenhouse down to the main garden this fall to use as a greenhouse for spring greens in the future. I figured this was a good way to start prepping the beds for that space. It is a section where I have had my compost piles and the pigpen forthe last two seasons.
To prep the area, I scraped all the pig poo away and into this year’s compost pile. I used the backhoe bucket to tug out any lingering roots from when this section was cleared years ago and to remove the sod layer.
My rototiller is having some sort of internal mechanical issue I do not have time to investigate (I only use a tiller when creating new permanent beds). I spent an entire day with a hoe and rake moving and smoothing the soil into seven 3 foot by 25 foot beds that were broad forked, raked again, planted, and covered with hay. Fingers crossed that even with the late start, they will grow lots of tubers!
The greenhouse has been my haven this year from all the struggles of the outside garden. The second planting of basil is ready to harvest and the purple basil I let flower. It is wonderfully fragrant as well as beautiful and popular with the pollinators.
On June 14, I moved the remaining screen tables outside and set the pots up in three rows. I spent the afternoon running twine for the cucumbers and indeterminate tomatoes. The first cucumber was ready on the 13th, and we have been steadily harvesting cukes every few days since.
Cucumbers. Photo by Tenley Nelson
I have two plantings of cucumbers this year and the ones producing fruit were started April 8 in two-inch soil blocks and transplanted into 15-gallon pots May 4. I lost about half of those plants due to (preventable) stress but the ones that made it are doing great.
The second planting I started in May 16 and should begin producing in mid July. The pepper plants and tomatoes are setting fruit and I am hopeful that I might have some ripe tomatoes before Tim leaves for the hunting season.
Setting up my low tunnels in the garden was a big challenge this year. I struggle to keep them weeded in August as their design makes weeding difficult and the years of weed seed have built up. It took me an entire day to weed each three foot by 100 foot bed this spring. Too much!
While I do not like plastic in the garden, as I am reevaluating what I can accomplish as a farmer of one, I made the decision this year to purchase heavy duty UV protected reusable landscape fabric for these four 100-foot-long beds. My hope is that this layer will keep the weeds down to a manageable level and every fall I should be able to take it apart, weed, compost and rotate the landscape fabric so that it is all prepared for the next spring planting. A farmer can dream, right?
Landscape fabric. Photo by Tenley Nelson
It took me a while to get the hang of it, but I used a propane weed burner and several different shaped metal implements to create the holes I needed for plants, the hoops, and the tie down stakes. I made 4 patterns: half summer squash and half winter squash, half greens and half squash, green beans, and half tomato and half herbs.
Now that the garden is in (better late than never) the maintenance begins. I have a lot of weeding and mulching to catch up on!
I hope your gardens are thriving and getting enough moisture with this hot summer.
From my garden to yours, happy weeding (and mosquito) season!
Ida Gold tomatoes. Photo by Tenley Nelson
