Tips on vegetables playing nice in your garden
Now that we have some nice hot weather, make sure to water lots. Plants that don’t get enough deep watering stay small.
The garlic scapes are out and ready to harvest. They are elegant, curly stalks with a flower on the end. It is important to remove the entire scape before the flower opens to direct energy into forming a nice big garlic head. Scapes are delicious to eat, in a sauté, as part of a pesto, or finely chopped in any garlicky sauce.
Snow peas are flowering, if not ready to harvest soon. Let the pods reach your desired size, 3 or so inches. Harvest early and often while the pea is still young. This is when they are at their best and the more you harvest, the larger the yield. Make sure to guide them onto the trellis if they stray – same thing goes for the cucumbers.
Green arrow peas are shelling peas, which take longer to mature. For those, wait until the pod fills out, and then break open to expose the peas inside.
Make sure to keep slug hunting and remove slug damaged leaves. Keep on top of harvesting your leafy greens to make room for the other plants to grow in your garden.
Take a look at my video for more details.
Your broccoli is probably heading up. Let them keep growing until they reach a desirable size. Keep an eye daily because the broccoli heads are actually flowers and if you leave them too long, they will open into yellow flowers. Cut the head with a sharp knife, and let the rest of the plant keep growing. In a couple of weeks you can harvest 2 smaller side heads. In the meantime you can add the large outer leaves to salads, stir-fries or sautés.
If you have mushroom logs, keep them watered, and in a shady spot. Once the oyster mushrooms sprout, keep them watered as well.
If you have a brand new asparagus patch, you should be seeing a couple of tiny spears appearing. The asparagus spear is actually an immature frond, like a fiddlehead to a fern leaf. Let these grow into long feathery blooms will feed you asparagus crown, and provide you with harvest next spring.
If you have a potato bed, the greenery should be quite tall and lush by now. You can remove the bottom 6 inches of leaves and mound up soil. This can increase yields.
Garlic scape pesto