Broccoli and Lettuce Picking

Sunday, June 10 - A hot and humid Sunday in South Jersey today. It is in the 90's with showers popping up in the tri-state area. I hope are area gets some rain soon. The soil is very dry and cutting grass this weekend the dust kicked up reminded me of those hot days in August.

The hydrangeas are beginning to bloom in our garden ! Hopefully by the weekend the plants will be in full bloom. Also, the annuals we have placed in pots, baskets and in our yard are beginning to mature. One of my favorites is this petunia we bought at Kens Gardens. It is beginning to "wave", meaning it is starting to grow over the sides of the flower pot found on our patio.

The blueberry plants are beginning to ripen. We have been getting a handful almost every day and the 3 varieties we planted should give us this amount throughout the month of June.

Today I picked 2 heads of broccoli. Our cool crops have treated us well this year and it looks like with this heat this week, this may be our last week for lettuce.


Here is a picture of the area I cleared last weekend which contained strawberry plants. I transplanted 15 different plants, all which grew from the compost pile this year. I do not know how many will actually survive this heat we are having, however it looks like I will have a late crop of zucchini, cantaloupe and tomatoes this year.


Here is a side view of my vegetable garden I took early this morning. All of my crops are doing well. I am looking forward to the cauliflower which I planted back in the spring to begin to form heads. This is the first year I have tried to grow this vegetable.

This afternoon, I spent a few hours working on my compost pile. It is amazing the amount of heat which is generated by all the ingredients I have added. When I started to turn over all the matter, it began to smolder as the grass and leaves are beginning to breakdown. I also went to my neighbors and added a load of horse manure. I layered the manure with the other parts. This will be a huge benefit for next years crops when I put this compost in the garden next spring. It also will give the manure time to "age", which will help crops grow and not burn the roots when added. (Yes, Janice, I thought of you today.  :) )

Lastly, here is a pic of my clematis I planted a few weeks ago. As you can see, I have plenty of green and  but no blooms. I did add espoma tomato tone as this product has a small amount of nitrogen which is needed for this plant. If anyone has any suggestions on what I should do, please let me know.