The crops are starting to come in. I picked a bunch of snow peas today, as well as harvesting all of my broccoli heads that were starting to bolt. I should have cut them yesterday. The heads were small, but a week of weather in the high 90s was too much for them. The peas and broccoli went in on April 30. It should have been at least a couple of weeks earlier. I probably should fertilize them next year.

I picked enough Shishito peppers earlier in the week to have with my dinner. I picked more Gypsy peppers today and have at least a dozen in the refrigerator, now.

I was sidetracked today by having to deal with a yellowjacket nest forming under the screened in porch. I called a pest control company, and they will be out on Monday afternoon to eliminate it.

I have many tennis ball sized tomatoes, but they are not ripening. I would have thought this extremely hot weather would have moved them along. When they ripen it will be a deluge of tomatoes.

I am considering the garden essentially done. I have a few odds and ends to do with lighting and putting up the weathervane. But is looks good and all of the plantings are done except for me to transplant some Hosta in front of Bed #1. I also have a fair-trade metal sculpture of the Tree of Life made by Haitian artisans from old oil barrels that will be arriving on Monday. I’ll hang it on the side of the barn as a focal point when looking down the garden path. It will also be a Laudato Si’ talking point for the grandkids.

Now that the mulch is installed, the garden is almost complete. I finished it up by planting some Japanese cucumber plants in the bed with the four plastic towers. I planted Crystal Apple cucumber seeds by the second tower, True Lemon cucumber seeds by the third tower and Lebanese cucumber seeds by the fourth tower. I planted green beans along the east side of that bed.

I replanted three rows of radishes as an experiment, although I am likely several weeks too late. I planted another pot of basil and another pot of slow-bolting cilantro from two packs of several year-old seeds in the container garden. I mixed and old package and new package of parsley seeds and planted them in the herb garden. I repotted a new large basil plant that I bought and set it on the lower deck, as the first plant died because of the cool weather and too much water retention in the pot. So, I am essentially done.

So how is the garden doing? First of all, there has been no rabbit or other animal damage so far. That was my intent in creating the raised beds and it seems to have worked. I might still need to deal with squirrels, groundhogs and raccoons. I can wrap the beds in 36-inch fencing if I need to.

Because of the construction, the cucumbers got planted almost a month late, and the zucchini was at least a couple of weeks late. The larger zucchini plants have blossoms already. It remains to be seen if they have enough of a root system to bear fruit. The rest of the important crops got in on time.

The radishes did extremely well, and I harvested the rest of them a couple of days ago. The Pak Choy bolted this week, and I had to pull out the remaining plants. Natalie and I used at least four plants earlier. The red lettuce is bitter and was mislabeled by Goebbert’s. It was supposed to be Red Romaine. It is bitter and I will probably compost it. The arugula bolted without producing any large leaves. Maybe I planted it too tight. The green onions are doing well, and the beets are growing okay, but the bulbs aren’t large.

I picked cilantro a few days ago and will have to figure out my timing on re-seeding.

There are a few gypsy peppers that can be picked, and I see some small Shishito peppers that might be ready withing the week, especially since it will be hot over the next week. I have one cherry tomato that is starting to ripen, and many of the Early Girl II and Champion tomato plants have golf ball sized fruit. I would expect my first tomato in a week or so.

Green peppers and eggplant went in a few weeks late and are not starting to fruit yet.

Maintenance is easy with the soft soil and higher beds. It takes me about an hour to water the whole garden. I am expecting to do more watering tan I had in the past.

All in all, I am extremely happy with the project. Planting was kind of a hodge podge as I was still building while planting. I might vary the location of plantings next year, but I think what I have done this year is quite workable.

Yesterday marked the completion of this long project to convert my entire garden to raised beds. The initial idea for this project came last August after voracious rabbits and other creatures destroyed my entire garden. I was inspired by an article in Better Homes and Gardens that showed a whole garden of raised beds.

There were three parts to the project. On March 31, I acquired and installed 6 raised planters from Lee Murdock’s brother. He was getting rid of them and I paid his landscaper to move them over. New Raised Planters | Mark’s Garden Blog

The next phase was to install a water spigot and hose rack in the garden. I ran a hose out to the garden and attached it to the new spigot, installed a lightweight hose to it and now I had water in the garden without having to drag a heavy hose across the lawn every time I wanted to water. New Water System | Mark’s Garden Blog

The third phase was to buy and assemble 15 metal raised beds, fill them with garden soil and finally to cover the paths between them with mulch.

It has been a cooler June this year, but the little harbingers of summer have finally arrived. I saw one crawling around when I was weeding yesterday so I knew they were ready to make their appearance. Tonight I saw them mostly in the blackberry patch, very close to the one I saw crawling around yesterday. Despite the cool evenings, summer days are coming!

Due to the cruelty of the Trump Administration’s budget cuts, much of the funding for food pantries have been cut. Obviously, Jesus’ admonition to “feed the hungry” is lost to right wing “Christian” nationalists. Those of us at St. Anne’s who garden have been asked to “plant a row” specifically for our food pantry since the need will be greater this year.

We have planted a large bed of 6 Early Girl II tomatoes specifically the food pantry of Project Hope. Since the beds were installed late, I planted tomatoes that were almost three feet tall with little tomatoes and flowers! They are in red tomato cages and the bed is in the center of the garden.

I have dedicated the bed in Memory of Sr. Lorraine Menheer, whose visionary action beginning in the early 1990s formed Project Hope at St. Anne. Through the generous donation of parishioners, our House of Hope thrift store generates over a million dollars each year to help local people in need. We also have a food pantry that feeds many local families and individuals.

We will donate all the tomatoes from that bed to Project Hope as well as some of the surplus from the rest of the garden. That bed is labeled and will serve as a talking point to my grandchildren and others for us to be aware of poverty and hunger that exists even within the wealthy community of Barrington as well as throughout the world. It is our duty to feed people in need.

In mid-August, last summer, I gave up on my garden as it had been completely devastated by rabbits and other critters. Natalie and I didn’t even get enough vegetables for our own needs from our large garden, and there were none to give away. After all the work I had put in during the spring I was completely broken. I vowed never to let this happen again and decided that I would convert t the whole garden to raised beds that were out of the reach of the rabbits and other small creatures. If larger animals such as racoons and groundhogs became a problem, I could easily wrap the beds with 36-inch plastic fencing to keep them out.

The main part of the project was completed today with soil being loaded into the remaining beds and final planting being done. The installation of the mulch for the paths will come in the next week or so. It has been a much more difficult project to complete than I anticipated, but it is now done. I have installed 15 galvanized and painted steel beds, and 6 wooden planters. This will make my gardening a lot easier in the future as I can spray the mulched paths with RoundUp to control any weeds making it through the mulch. Planting and weeding will be easier in the soil that is half compost, and I will be planting denser to help control weeds. There will also be less bending. There is no longer a need to rototill.

I was outside at 6:00 AM, putting the last two beds together. The temperature was in the mid-40s, a departure from the 80- and 90-degree weather of a few days ago. I finished one bed by about 7:00 and realized that my measurements were off and the layout I had planned would not work. I switched the fourth tomato bin with one of the bigger bins with rounded ends. I called Noah around 7:30 and he said that they were almost ready to leave but needed to do some work on the machine they were going to use to move the soil as it hadn’t been run in a couple of years. That gave me a little breathing room. They arrived around 8:00 and I explained the game plan to Noah. They would do any necessary leveling of the beds.

They started loading the soil and I continued work on the last bin. As they progressed, it became obvious that I was way off in my calculation of the amount of soil needed. We’ll need another 6 or seven yards at least! They wrapped up around noon and will be back on Memorial Day, weather permitting. That will give me time to rebuild the two wooden beds.

After they left, I headed up to Countryside in Crystal Lake. They had no Mortgage Lifter tomatoes or Mexican Tarragon. I did grab some okra even though I am not ready to plant it. I drove home and grabbed some lunch and then took a nap as I was exhausted. More exhausted than I’ve been in a long time.

I headed over to Goebbert’s around 3:30 and they were out of Mortgage Lifter tomatoes also and the pepper plants were small. There was only one large Jalapeno plant left, and it looked half dead. Then I realized that Monday is probably a terrible day to go to a Nursery as they are cleaned out from the weekend and haven’t re-stocked yet.

I drove home and started planting everything that I could. My stated goal was to have the garden in my May 19th and I think I would call this a win. The essential plants are planted and the rest will only be a week late if we can avoid rain on Memorial Day. Considering the massiveness of this revision, I am happy.

I took a little time from my construction to pick some Bok Choi and red (Due to Goebbert’s labeling error) Green Onions for dinner. These were planted about a month ago. Natalie made a wonderful dinner with this and some carrots, broccoli, pasta, and chicken-pineapple meatballs.