Spring is over: how are your gardens shaping up?

[Kansas Terri]

The marigolds are looking very poorly, with small, yellowed leaves. My watermelons and cucumbers never came up at all! Now, just for the fun of it I had put rice seeds in a cup of water on the deck to sprout and they are all up! This tells me that it was warm enough for the melons as rice and melons all love heat: melons, however, can drown while rice does not! Our basement flooded and the streets in town flooded and the melons and cucumbers failed and very likely drowned: this has been a very strange year weather-wise!

My kale, broccoli, cabbages, onions, and string beans are very happy and are promising a bumper crop!

Lastly, the pots of flowers on the back deck are all very happy, but then they are being grown in light potting soil instead of the heavy clay soil in my garden. Most years it is not a problem having heavy clay soil, but this year there were great puddles in the lawn for about a week, and few vegetables like THAT much water! Even if they do not drown, the risk of damping-off disease gets very high!

It was terribly hard to find the rice seeds, as it is simply not grown in my area. I eventually found it at http://www.kitazawaseed.com/, along with many other Asian seeds. My growing season is too short in most years to get any grain, but I think it is a handsome plant and it does amuse me to grow it! Last year it was unusually hot and I was able to save my own seed, which was rather fun!

 

[fruitedplain]

My vegetables are growing like crazy, with the exception of the melons. They are sad, sad, sad. I have one raised bed that I suspect has too much manure, but the pumpkins seem to love the extra poo. I'm predicting ripe tomatoes by the 4th of July from some of my store bought plants and the ones started from seed are not too far behind.

My annuals and herbs are looking great too. They are loving the unusally cooler temps. I've yet to come home from work to find them scortched and wilted from the heat.

 

[Kansas Terri]

Fruitedplain, my melons never came up at all! Last Friday I reseeded them, as we are starting to have a few warm days, now.

The weather this year has been VERY strange!

 

[dconklin]

My poor garden is holding in there, but the weather has definitely not been working with us. We have had record rainfall over the last couple weeks and my poor plants have just about drowned, but not quite. They are standing tall but haven't really grown much over the last couple weeks between all the rainy days and the cooler then normal weather. My pea plants are the only ones not really standing at the moment from all the heavy rains we have had.

We have had some hot days and yes I like the cool weather, but my plants like it a little warmer and drier!