How my garden grows, mid-May

(happy green babies)

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It's been an unusually cool spring this year- rarely above 60F during the day and into the 40s or lower at night. My greens and peas are loving it; my hot crops like tomatoes, peppers, and eggplant, not so much. The peppers were suffering so much that I actually brought them back inside, put a grow light over their cold heads, stuck a seedling heat mat under their cold feet, and fed them some nice worm poop. They are doing much better now.

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The tomatoes and eggplants- well, they went into a phase that looks like dormancy. But they will be fine. I left them outside.

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My kales have had a few visits from the evil cabbage moths already, but this year I'm staying on top of it- I'm hand-picking off the little yellow eggs before they can hatch. It's not hard to spot the eggs, and it's working great. I have just a few kale plants so it's an easy feat. And the moths don't like my mustard greens- as if I needed another reason to love Asian mustards.

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The squash plants (one eightball and one yellow zucchini) are already beginning to bud a little bit. They each have about 8 leaves on them, and more little leaves are ready to unfurl.

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I might have to pick a peapod or two today to go with my lunch- for about two weeks now, lunch has been a generous handful of chopped mixed greens sprinkled on top of some kind of bean soup, drizzled with olive oil and apple cider vinegar. It is so GOOD.

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All in all, the vegetables are very healthy and doing quite well. Now, we just need some hotter weather...