Celebrating Solstice

I have mixed feelings about summer solstice. Although it is touted as being the first day of summer, it seems to me that it is more accurately the middle day of summer, since tomorrow the days start getting shorter. Already. Already? Really? We are expected to celebrate THAT? Well, in any case, here on Bainbridge Island we've had two gloriously sunny days in a row, so we are feeling pretty optimistic about the days ahead.

It's a good time to reflect on our garden experiences thus far.

Biggest success: Pac choi and broccoli raab
Most miserable failure: None yet!
Biggest mystery: Why our broccoli seems uninclined to form heads
Biggest pest: Slugs!
Most amazing: Snow peas appearing from nowhere every day
Notes for the future: smaller plantings, more successions (too much broccoli raab, mizuna and pac choi all at once), add sand to root vegetable area, plant the rows across rather than lengthwise, putting more space between rows of different veggies, and more intense slug warfare.

Here's that headless broccoli:



In our second plot, we planted peppers, squash and beans. We bought the pepper starts at the nursery (very iffy in our climate but we have to try) and Cheryl started the squash and beans on her front porch:





The broccoli raab is gone now and the mizuna is bolting and will be pulled soon. We'll plant more of both in August to see if we can get a fall crop. The mizuna: