The Transition from Spring Garden Beds to Summer Garden Beds

I love this time of year!  Yummy things coming out of the garden making room for all the yummy new things going into the garden.  The spring vegetables are almost finished growing, while the summer vegetables are impatiently waiting for their spot in the garden.

This transition time seems to be the busiest for me.  I enjoy bringing the harvest in and putting it up to dry or in the freezer. I enjoy fluffing my raised beds and adding new soil. It is such a pretty picture to see a raised bed all cleaned out and ready to accept new plants. Unfortunately that does not last long for there is always new seedlings on the back deck waiting to go into that bed, like the lima beans and yard long beans that quickly filled the place that used to house the potatoes.

A few weeks ago we had a very cold night. My potatoes and grapes did not survive. So when I harvested my potatoes the other day, I only got a few pounds of small, round, yet very beautiful red and gold potatoes. I will get several meals from these, but no where near the amount the harvest should have been. That is part of gardening, sometimes there will be a crop failure. We learn and our garden continues.

On to a brighter note, I harvested a good amount of turnips and green onions. And lots of turnip greens for the bunnies!  The green peas only ripen a few at a time as the vines continue to climb higher and higher. From my ten feet of peas I only get a couple servings each time I harvest. But they are definitely worth the wait. I do love peas. Other than zucchini, peas are my favorite thing from the garden. Peas do give the smallest return for the space and time they require, but I try to grow them anyhow.

The chives have a couple buds and the parsleys are a beautiful round domes again, so in a week or so they will both be harvested for the second time.  But for the roses, no.  We have had too much wind to keep any petals on the blossoms.  I have to wait for the flowers to completely open before harvesting. By that time this strong wind has blown them off the plants. Hopefully this wind will calm and I will be able to get some rose petals soon. I have many red knock-out roses, a beautiful pastel pink tea rose with huge blossoms, and some wild deep red small blossom roses.  I will make rose water and other skin formulas from them becuase roses are very good for the skin.