It is June already!! How does your garden grow?

So how 'bout some warm June temperatures!? Oh wait, I am not in Georgia anymore! It doesn't get warm (in my opinion) until August, if we are lucky. The grass seems to think it is warm enough though. It has needed mowing every weekend, pretty much. When we had a few consecutive days of warm sunshiny weather I got all inspired. I put tomato, pepper and squash starts in the ground. But now they are just hanging out; waiting for some more above 65ish degree sunny days. The peas I planted back in February and then again 2 weeks later are now going crazy, they are a good 4 feet tall and climbing and there are tons of flowers. I have had one pod venture out and mature so far but I think they are just waiting for that sun to peak through for a little longer before they really start fruiting.

I am trying something new this year. I have heard quite a bit of success stories with black plastic around the base of warm loving plants. I have a raised bed with 2 tomato plants in them; I figured the raised bed would help the soil warm up faster and have ripe fruit before the end of the short northwest summer. Last year I ended up with LOTS of green tomatoes. So this year I am comparing raised bed to no bed with black plastic. We'll see how it goes. So far the tomatoes in the black plastic are looking pretty stout compared to my raised bed plants. We'll see what happens once my cosmos starts coming up around my tomatoes! I am running out for room for all the things I want to grow, I am seriously contemplating digging up some more of the lawn so we can have more things to eat.

We have been enjoying cilantro and some spinach so far from the garden so far. Actually, I have gotten more adventuresome with cooking and created some yummy pasta-tomato-spinach-bean creations as well as a little bit of this little bit of that southwestern inspired bean salad. (I am still learning how to use the right amount of onion!) I love going in the front yard and picking things when I am making dinner and figuring out how to use them in a meal. I had some lettuce that was doing quite well until I just noticed today has been mowed down by slugs. I think I need to bring the ladies to the front yard for some slug hunting. I have a hunch that the resident crow family picked out my beans, only one came up. I have a hard time getting annoyed with them, though. I feel like they are family. I have been watching them the last few weeks break twigs from a Red Bud tree and fly them up to the nearby Doug-fir where they must be building their nest. I will plant some more beans soon and hopefully they will be too busy with their youngsters to visit my garden. Maybe the squawking chickens will help with crows too?

When I was rooting around in the garden, I discovered some un harvested potatoes from last year that are now sprouting so we will have potatoes again this year, hooray!