First Zucchini Sighting, Succession Planting, Reflections on Fruit

The peas are in full swing. Unfortunately, we planted the kind with hard, woody shells rather than a snow pea variety. Still - they had pretty purple flowers and they are producing.

Pictured above: a tiny handful of raspberries. The plants are producing, but a 4x4 patch with three (now 4 with a runner) bushes is not nearly enough. We need to plant many more next spring. Possibly the small boxes in the lower garden can all be put into raspberry production, as they get partial shade, and they do O.K. without full, full sun. 

After some reading on how to care for small apple trees, it turns out that you want to pluck all the fruit off the moment it shows up for the first two years so that they can work on their root system. While I was removing the beginnings of apples, I noticed that some of the leaves had been skeletonized by wretched shiny Japanese beetles. We took immediate action, and sprayed the leaves with a solution of dish soap & water. The beetles are gone, and haven't returned, but they did do some damage before we noticed them. 

The new blueberry bushes are producing. Those that we bought this year started out bigger than the ones we planted two years ago, and they will outproduce them immediately. Still, six small bushes - we're not going to get more than a handful of berries this year. 

The first zucchini was spotted this morning. There, I expect some serious production. Nine plants, vs. 3 last year.

Finally, later this afternoon I'll be planting some Seed Savers Bronze Arrowhead lettuce. Here's a sad fact: it takes 40-50 days to maturity. That means this lettuce is for the end of August/beginning of September. 

Summer is too short.