Getting Summer Crops In the Ground

Mother's Day is fast approaching and that is the typical planting date for most summer crops in this area.  I decided to give my started pepper and tomato seedlings a few more weeks before I transplant them because they are a little on the small side and the weather hasn't been nice enough lately to harden them off well.  I do think the weather is good enough to plant seeds of the other summer crops outside.  It has been cloudy and rainy here with temps on the cool side for the past couple of weeks, so the extra moisture should get the newly planted seeds off to a good start.

Before I planted any seeds I made sure that each of those beds were set up with drip irrigation.  I am loving how easy it is to water my whole garden with this system.  All I have to do is turn on the hose and let it run for half an hour or so.  Most of my summer crop beds only needed two lines per bed since those crops are spaced plenty far apart in their beds.

The first bed I planted was my bush green beans using a variety called Tenderette.  I only had enough seeds to plant two rows, though I would have liked to plant three or four.  Hopefully I will be able to save enough seeds to plant more next year if they do well.  Down the center of the two rows of beans I interplanted a row with a mixture of spinach and lettuce with a handful of radishes thrown in.  This was my third planting of lettuce and spinach, so I'd say I'm doing pretty well this year on staggering my planting dates with these crops to extend my salad season.

The second bed I planted was my squash bed.  I planted one hill of zucchini and one hill of yellow straight neck squash for my summer squashes.  I also planted one hill of acorn squash and one hill of a variety called sweet meat for my winter squashes.  I plan on planting a number of squash in one of the long rows with the corn.  In the spaces between the hills of squash I planted rows of parsnip along the drip line.  Parsnip is a slow growing root crop that can stay in the ground for a long time before I need to harvest it.  I am hoping that it gets a good head start on the squash so it can act as a ground cover in this bed while not interfering too much with the squash.  It is a good choice for this bed because I won't have to harvest it until after the squash are done growing for the season.

The third bed was planted with two rows of cucumbers.  On one side I planted with a variety called Miniature White.  This variety is supposed to be a compact bush variety that starts producing early.  The other variety is called Boston Pickling.  This variety is more indeterminate and produces good quantities of small crisp cucumbers perfect for pickling.  I am planning of putting a trellis on this bed as soon as the seedlings sprout.

The last thing I planted was a couple of hills of watermelons.  I haven't had good luck with watermelon in the past, so this year I am trying something different.  Instead of giving them their own bed in the garden, I just loosened up some dirt in a couple of hills next to the garden and planted them there.  I am hoping they get enough room to grow here without having to compete with other vining plants in the garden.