The beans are soaking, a bamboo tee-pee has been erected, and I need to dig the inoculant out of the shed before I forget and sow without it.  It really has been a beautiful day to work out in the garden.  Other chores included 'hilling' the potato bags with compost and straw layers, a little weeding, some potting up, and some feeding were checked off the list today.

Many of the potatoe plants have put on quite a bit of growth this past week despite the cold evening temperatures.  Even the tomatoes appear to be happy being out in the garden in below average May temperatures.  Most plants are starting to flower out and a few varieties are noticeably bigger than the rest, mainly the Polbig, Juliet, and Sungold.  Lettuce seedlings are growing in nicely between the plants.  It is almost time to do another succession sowing for the greens.  I have some Claytonia and a Spicy Mesclun Mix to add to the next round.

(I put 4 plants under black mulch and they are in fact larger, though they are also early varieties so not sure which is the contributing factor- maybe both.)

The currants are really coming along, my mouth waters just looking at them!

Here are my apple babies (just a solitary fruit one the first tree, still a group remaining on the second):

And some great news:  my rhubarb has come to life- WOO-HOO!!!!!!!!

I am finding the obvious coloration differences in the mint I recently planted runners of interesting, the ginger mint is quite gold, the chocolate mint has dark colored veining and edging (which for some reason is not very visible in the photo below unless you really compare it to the traditional mint), and then there is the plain 'ol mint- just green!

I am growing quite impatient for all those peas to start producing.  I spied a few flowers out there today- FINALLY!  I was able to harvest a large amount of greens today, enough to get us through most of the week I think.......well, that about covers what is going on out in my little kitchen garden, what is coming to life in yours?

Pickles It Is!

I was surprised to find another handful of cukes ready for picking over the weekend so I whipped up a batch of refrigerator pickles tweaking the recipe just a bit to suit my tastes. SO EASY! And it turns out you just scrub away those nasty spines. I started out with a potato brush but that wasn't cutting it, so next I tried a popsicle stick (just happened to be there) and it turned out to be the perfect tool, go figure. I can't wait to try these bad boys, but I should probably leave them to soak for a few days first.

Well, leaving them to sit before tasting is no longer an option since after taking this photograph I grabbed a fork and had a warm pickle. I am a little embarrassed to show my lack of patience, but no regrets. Even when warm it was a tasty pickle. Very sweet with a bit of tang.

On a side note I planted more pole beans and carrots this weekend. The beans went in a raised bed and on a straw bale. The straw bale was originally planted with melons but critters took care of those for me. I am beginning to wonder if I will get one darned melon out of all those seedlings I planted.