Garden Update...early June

June is my favorite time in the gardening season: the plants are all in and growing well, temperatures are still pleasant for outside work, and the weeds/bugs just haven't settled in yet. We also get to harvest our first crop. Peas! The kids love to pick and eat them. Robert will even eat the pea leaves for fun. This was my first successful batch of snap peas (edible podded), so I'll be growing those again in the future (more veggie bang for your effort buck). The buttercrunch lettuce was a bitter disaster, despite it's bountiful and beautiful foliage. I'll be growing it somewhere a lot shadier this fall to see if sweet homegrown lettuce can actually appear under my care.

Here are a couple snapshots of the garden now (compare it to 3 weeks ago):

 

The metal framing is the skeleton for my upcoming "squirrel exclosure." The first approach will be to drape the frame with heavyweight bird netting. There are ample food sources in my neighborhood for squirrels (i.e. two neighbors who actively feed them all year because they're "just so darn cute!"), and squirrels haven't discovered my garden as a potential food source yet (i.e. it's just greens at this point), so the bird netting may be perfectly sufficient. If the squirrels start chewing holes it the netting, however, I'll be forced to take a hit in convenience and install chicken wire. Ugly stuff, harder to work with, but effective. I could also let the chickens loose in the mulch paths. They chase away squirrels. Actually, Agnes chases them away and the other two biddies follow her because they're terrified to be left alone for half a second. Guard chickens. Yeah.

The plan is to assemble this structure over each garden bed so I can eventually remove the perimeter fence. 

Everything is planted and growing well. I love, love, love June. I spy blossoms on my tomatoes and cantaloupes. My Dad spotted the lima beans as "pole", not "bush" type. It was tricky putting in a support frame when the plants were already 18 inches tall and growing into each other, but now it's okay. Dang it all. I didn't remember to double check if there was a "bush" variety of lima bean. 

I have a miniature bunny enjoying my bean plants. It's just a baby, barely weaned, that can hop effortlessly through the 2"x3" holes in the fencing. My awesome veggies appear to be making it fat, however, and I suspect it won't fit through the fence much longer. I hope wandering bunnies will also be deterred by the bird netting in the future...maybe my beans won't be worth the extra chewing hassle :) Would Agnes chase bunnies away? Bunnies usually strike when the ladies are already in bed.

Bummer.