Saw the first watermelons today. I also saw root starts from one of my commercial peach trees. It doesn’t look like a peach leaf. I’m thinking I can pot them up and have my own rootstocks, but not sure what it is.
Maybe a plum? It would be neat if it was an American plum, and that would help explain the ready suckering.
I turned out to have 71 slips. 35 of them are now in the ground. 3 foot grid, 5 rows of 7. More slips coming. If they burrow by even a few inches the soil will be better next spring. I suspect they’ll go much deeper.
Just about 10 feet from the watermelon area, so the rest will go elsewhere.
3 diakon are blooming. Pollination is sparse. I need to take a paintbrush out there. If I get one mature pod off of each plant, we’re ahead of the game.
The 2nd year parsnips aren’t blooming yet. Rutabagas are.
I’m surprised to hear you have pollination issues with your daikon radishes. Is it just them, or do you usually have pollination at this time of year, in general?
I usually get plenty of pollination and lots of pods with all my brassicas and radishes, which I grow mixed up together.
Many brassicas are fully or partially self-infertile (need another plant for full fertilization) and I have a severe shortage of pollinators. The three plants that survived the winter are about 20-50 feet apart, with other plants between, so it’s not unexpected.
A severe shortage of pollinators would do it! I seem to have lots of native bees, and they seem to love the brassicas – there are always bees around them when they’re in flower. I’ve even seen two hummingbirds drinking nectar from a brassica! 
Come to think of it, I provide a lot of habitat for them by leaving my garden messy with organic material over the winter. That may help keep their populations high.
I’m working on the pollinator garden, but it’s slow. Currently lupines are well established, but most of the flowers I planted didn’t reseed themselves. Even the poppies appear to have died out.
(Nods.) Did you go with the GTS pollinator mix this year?
For some reason I didn’t even see that one, so no. Maybe next year.
I can see the first beans on the plants. Plants are stunted, just as they were last year, but it could be the cold, the soil, the water levels, the wind, or the weed pressure. Or any combination.
Green beans were planted about a month later but are larger. Better soil, deep mulch, protected from the wind, no weeds. No blossoms, though.
Quinoa didn’t sprout. There is one group of plants that might be quinoa or might be pigweed, but they’re not coming up where I planted the quinoa. More research is necessary.
I have amaranth and chia seedlings, but so far the only sesame is the plants I started inside. I think sesame needs to be planted later.
Beets are forming bulbs! I expected that with my clay soil the best I’d get is a lot of greens, but the thinnings from today (actually transplants) had tiny bulbs. The goal with this batch is just to get seeds, since many of my seeds are over a decade old. That will have to wait until next year, though.
Maybe a dozen cucumbers have escaped the velociraptors. My idea of not protecting anything seems to be working.
I should just call it good for this year and stop putting seeds in the ground, but…must…plant…
First harvest, in a sense. The old cherry that was already here produced for the first time. Not a lot, but it produced! The cherries are small, slightly tart but not puckery. I think this one might be a pie cherry.
Now if only I can encourage it to give me cherries every year!
Harvested the first spinach and beet greens this week. I’m being sparing on the harvest, since these are mostly for seed.
I had a higher emergence rate on the popcorn than last year, even planting deep, but it doesn’t appear to appreciate the weed pressure. I’m tempted to fertilize just once, to give the patch a boost. That shouldn’t affect any of the other criteria. Soil will remain the same, and it rained two days ago.
Three of my “standard breed” potatoes are blooming. If I get any seeds, that will give an adaption boost when I start working with TPS next year.
Diakon seeds are ripening. Still two in the garden. There’s really no way to determine whether most of these survived the cold, since I didn’t see them until they were blooming. The first three I could easily tell just by the leaves.
Rutabaga seeds also ripening. I was stupid and broke the second parsnip plant. I hope it survives.
The beans are really struggling. I think the problem is too much water. But I’m seeing blossoms and beans, so they’re surviving.
Hard to believe it’s already the beginning of June.
I know! I keep on thinking, “It’s still spring! I still have time to plant seeds!” and then I have to keep reminding myself, "It’s now early summer. The rains stopped completely three weeks ago. You can still plant seeds if you want, but they may or may not succeed . . . 
"
The rains should have stopped here, but we seem to be getting the March abd April rains that never came. Or maybe we’re getting the fall rains that never came.
Neighbor from hell secretly hating your plants. Healthy horseradish and comfrey will not mind a cutting down. I use them to mulch with and keeping grass out.
What an asshole neighbor. I’d have him cut the grass forever as a payback, but sober. He should start gardening himself, it has done me a lot of good, caring for plants is positive and has kept me from drinking.
Yeah, horseradish and comfrey popped right back. The first stage of the fence is finished.
Honestly I have too much stuff planted (pretty much everywhere) to risk someone else doing work around here.
I suspect he’s in the first stages of dementia. I just keep reminding myself that it’s a good thing that he climbs on his mower when he’s drunk, and not in his truck.
That’s sweet to think like that, but he can still hit a child with that tractor. I hope he’s helping to pay for the fence at least.
Brr drunks, in Finland people are obliged to have their guns in a safe with such a clicky lock, considered too difficult for a drunk person to use. His keys should be in similar. Or with a family member.
He lives alone with his non compos mentis brother (seriously, he’s been trained to do simple household tasks and that’s all he’s capable of) I am the nearest neighbor, the next being about half a mile distant. No risk there.
That’s an interesting idea, though. Maybe it would be a good idea for him to keep his keys in some kind of lockbox that is possible for him to open while he’s sober, and not while he’s drunk? It may be a good solution for his and others’ safety.
