The weather has been cooperative North of Seattle so far this year. No overcast and rainy May. No smoke filled skies from wildfires. We’ll start seeing Harvests Of Things in the next 10-14 days, which is right on pace with when it’s been nice outside for most of the summer.
An overview pic from the “front”. The camera is pointed mostly East, slightly North:
That’s tomatoes on the left, peppers in the center, and basil on the right. On the back left are the Tromboncino zucchini, on the right are cucumbers, and behind the cucumbers are pole beans.
The first cucumbers are nearly ready:
We had a day in the 100’s recently. The basil absolutely loves that, though I’m guessing concrete and the garden area must have been over 110 degrees:
Last year we made a big bag of “Italian Seasoning” with oregano from our raised beds and the basil. I see another big bag or two in our future.
We trying a new thing this year, eggplant. If you look closely you can see a flower on the left plant. I have no idea how well it’s going to do, but I’m hoping we harvest some eggplant for roasting or baba ganoush:
The raspberries didn’t get very tall this year for some reason, at least not yet. Usually they grow up and over the top of the cage. It may be the hot weather, how I pruned them this year, a nutrient shortage.. hard to say. We still have quite a few raspberries for eating though. I’ll try more water and fertilizer late season and see if that makes a difference:
The pepper plants are doing well. Usually we see some insect (I think earwig) damage but not so far this year. The King of The North box:
The Tromboncino are growing up to the top of the 8′ trellis, then breaking off at the top. That’s ok, because I can’t really harvest the top of the trellis without a ladder, and they’re just sending up lots of side shoots instead:
The Tromboncino receive direct sunlight starting about 1pm through most of the rest of the day. They’re in the “back” of the garden, which is the last place that the sun reaches as it moves over the house. We have a couple of fruits on the plant that are getting some size. For reference, the trellis squares are 7 or 8″. The fruits will grow to 24″ or a little more:
Most times when two fruits are growing close to each other like that we’ll harvest one early so they’re not competing for resources.
One final picture — an overview from the side:
That’s peppers in the left foreground with determinate (Roma and Oregon Spring) tomatoes behind them. In the center back are the indeterminate (Tigerella, Green Zebra, Black Krim) tomatoes. In the right front are eggplant and to their right are some bunch onion/ scallion starts with marigolds. Cucumbers are in the center with the Tromboncino behind them them and pole beans (Fortex) to the right.
I hear one of our neighbors getting a garden tour as I write this. I think people are always a little surprised with what you can grow on concrete.
FlatbreadGarden 