School's Out for Summer!

I haven't had much to blog about lately, and have been busy with end of the school year activities and preparations. I have not had much motivation to do anything and our garden has suffered for it. We planted some tomatoes, peppers, onions, carrots, radishes, lettuce and what not back in April. We had such cold, wet weather, than only the onions sprouted and survived, even though they were in the greenhouse. I put them in the garden about a week ago to keep the volunteer onion sets that sprouted up company. I think it is going to be one of those years, you know, not as productive as you had hoped. It seems already that we are fighting an uphill battle with weather and insects and plant diseases. I am really wanting to get some canning done and had hoped I would be canning more of our home grown food rather than the local farmers market.

 

We did manage to put 20 potatoes in the garden and I finally planted some green beans and peas today. Yesterday, DH and I put some boards along the bottom of the fence and strung up some string for the beans to climb. We had corn in there last year, but failed to thin it and had stumpy corn. I salvaged what I could, and I hope the green beans and peas do better. One section is next to the mint, so I am hoping that the mint will not cause any kind of growing problems for the beans. I think mint has a bad reputation, and I don't want to find that our for myself. I have no idea what kind of yield to expect. We eat a lot of green beans that I can up and freeze. I usually buy a 25# box at the farmers market and can them. I guess I planted about 40 seeds.

As you can see my strawberries are starting to come on. I've noticed that some of the leaves are turning blackish-brown. Not sure what causes this or how to remedy it. Suggestions?



My rhubarb was prolific last year and started coming up just fine and in the matter of about a week to 10 days, the leaves are full of holes, reddish and dead or dying. I can only find some ants and some flying things that look like little  ants with wings. I read that ants can eat the roots of rhubarb, but the damage seems to come from above ground. Ideas anyone? I will miss my rhubarb this year.