Potato bugs

They're here, and the larvae have hatched.  No pictures, but trust me, they are as gross as ever.

Also, the cucumber beetles have stepped up their game.

Organic gardening is a real challenge for this farmer who hates bugs.

Next year, I think I'll do individual hot cap type protection for my most vulnerable plants (broccoli, cauliflower, brussels sprouts, eggplant, squash) rather than row covers.

OMG, I thinned the carrots!

And it's just as exciting and monumental as the title of this post indicates.  I've been terrible about thinning out my carrots in the past, but this year, I actually made it out into the garden and did what I believe is a very fine job getting them all straightened out.  The thinning was desperately needed, as I had monster clumps of carrots starting.  So I thinned the carrots (and to a lesser extent, the parsnips) to about 2 inches apart.  While I was on a roll, I also thinned my squash, beets and kale, and added a few more fennel seeds to try to fill in the empty spaces in that bed.  We are relatively on top of the weeds this year, and while my eggplants are still struggling against the predation of the flea beetles, the garden dust has helped and I think they may pull through.  We've also had a good amount of rain this week, and so I haven't had to water.  Mike has been regularly giving compost tea to the asparagus, tomatoes, eggplants, and to the trees, and that seems to make them noticeably perkier and greener.

On the pest front, I've made tin foil collars for my brussels sprouts, broccoli, asparagus, eggplants, and peppers, and that has helped tremendously with the cutworms.  I've also been using garden dust on the eggplants, broccoli and cauliflower.  The potato bugs are here, so I've been hand picking them and their eggs, and dreading the emergence of the larvae.  Today I noticed the first herd of cucumber beetles, who are going to town on my squash, so I'll have to do something there.

Speaking of trees, we have deer nibbling on the apple trees.  Apparently even though we added a third dog, they have done nothing to deter deer.  Weird, since they're all fantastic at barking at the wind....So Mike has purchased some deer repellent, and is hoping that it will work.

Fennel

Snap peas are coming!

Shell peas, spinach, snap peas, and pole beans

Edamame (front) and green beans

Tomatoes

Eggplants in their tin foil collars

Close-up of the sad, dusted eggplants in their collars

Walking onions

Shallots - apparently they really can't take a joke about being transplanted

Makeshift hotcap for a particularly delicate brussels sprout

Broccoli, cauliflower, brussels sprouts

Glorious potatoes

Parsnips and carrots, pre-thinning

Salads galore

No time this morning for pictures, but the garden is going like gangbusters.  We've been feasting on salads with our own arugula, mesclun mix, spinach, and radishes, and have been cooking with our own herbs, for a few weeks.  The harukei turnips are ready and have been amazingly tasty.  I've been roasting the turnips, and using the greens in egg scrambles and stir-fries.  Yum!  The shelling peas are setting flowers, potato plants are getting ready to flower, and everything for spring/summer is now planted and (mostly) germinating.

The bug issues have started (flea beetles and cutworms, I'm looking at you), and I had to replant my eggplant row because the flea beetles completely ravaged my first set.  Good thing I started such an excessive number of seedlings!  We've been spraying with neem oil to try to fend off the flea beetles until the plants get better established.  I've also had several plant losses to cutworms (two marigolds, an eggplant, two chinese broccoli plants), which just make me angry because those pests don't even eat the plants.  They seem to just be destructive because they can, and it's totally getting under my skin.  I've also seen a few potato bug eggs on my eggplants, but none so far on the potatoes.

Yesterday I tackled weeding the shallot bed, which I had covered with a row cover and then ignored for six weeks.  Apparently, that's really great for weed development, so that project took a while.  I also realized that I hadn't fully separated my shallot cloves, so I had to dig, separate, and re-plant them.  I went from having what I thought was 1/3 of a bed's worth of shallots to filling an entire bed, plus two other quarter beds.  At least we like shallots.

The brussels sprouts and cauliflower/broccoli seedlings that I started are still so sad, so I bought supplemental brussels sprouts at the farmer's market this week.  I'm still going to plant some of my own, but I think I'll need to cover them with milk cartons to give them a fighting chance, and still don't have high hopes.