What's Growing?

(Grr!  There's a smudge on the uv protection for my camera, so any pictures in bright sunlight have a smear.   I've cleaned it twice, but I obviously need a new protection ring.  I also need to PUT THE LENS CAP BACK ON every time I'm done taking pictures.  Ahem.)

The artichoke plants I planted last summer are huge now, and as you can see....they are producing artichokes!  I brought in two this weekend and I'm boiling them today. There are easily a dozen grown and/or growing between the two plants.  (Do you see how the hill is no longer 3 feet tall with weeds?!?  More to come this week on that development. :)

I planted back in...I think early April?  or late March?...I'd have to check my archives (thank you blogging!) but I'm too lazy at the moment.  Anyway, these small boxes were planted with yellow squash and a tomato plant.  The squash is....failing to thrive.  I'll pull it out this weekend and add some composted soil and some new veggie starts.  It makes me wonder why some plants grow and others don't?

Like, check this out.  This tomato plant, and the yellow squash on the right and the one zucchini I planted on the left (way too close together, I might add!), are positively Jurassic in comparison.  Planted at the same time, from the same seed batches.  Not even as good soil!  I wasn't even planning to put veggies in this brick box under my kitchen window, but I had too many starts and just plopped them in on a whim.

There's even a zucchini growing in there!  Look at the size of the leaves!  It's crazy. 

It's been a cold and wet spring around here.  (After a cold and wet summer, last year.  Harumph.)  I think that might be partly to blame.  But you know what I really think the issue is?  The wind. It's been so windy at times!  It exhausts the little plants, I swear. 

I have absolutely no emperical evidence for this, at all.   Just an observation that the plants I put in the brick planter in the corner, where the garage meets the house, are protected on two sides from the wind and it also stays warmer in that little nook.  Even the second extra tomato plant I had, which I put at the other end of the planter, is only half the size of it's near-neighbor!  But it's not as protected there, because the garage isn't jutting out on that side to make a protected area.  It gets a lot of late afternoon sun there, too.

So, all we can do is wait and see what happens!  I'm still two weeks away from when I started the garden, last year!  Last year I planted too late.  This year?  It seems I may have planted too early.  I'm looking for the Goldilocks timeline...I just wish the weather would cooperate.