Box 1 still has the left over salad greens from the winter. I only kept the irrigation running for the beets on the west end of the box but the rain apparently kept the rest of the box growing. I'll be removing the beets next week and turning the soil over for planting squash and beans. I got a sampler of Italian broad and thin beans from online to plant.
Box 2 has the new tomato plants. I set it up for irrigation with two feeders for each plant with 360° shrubblers at the end of each then set the station to run for an hour 3 times a week. However immediately I was less than impressed with the results. Even with .2 inches of rain last weekend the plants were starting to look like the ones last year when I first tried watering with irrigation. I went back to forming 'bowls' around each plant and the shrubblers were putting out water ok but something was just NQR. As a result I'm planning to simply water by hand like I always have with such great success. One possibility I considered was that perhaps with the boxes being so high above the native soil the roots were having a hard time making use of it as they would have a much longer path to get down to it. But now that I've watered by hand a couple of times, I'm almost convinced that those plants with deep rooting really need to be manually cared for given the quick results I've seen already. The poor performance of the squash last year with drip would bear this out as well. So for now I'm not going to use drip for the tomatoes or squash except if I am out of town for more than a couple of days which probably won't be likely through growing season.
Box 3 - the onions and garlic are starting to look a bit waterlogged so I've turned off irrigation here too. It's getting near harvest time anyway so I think it's best to starve them of water now to prepare for the tops to die back.
Box 4 just got a new crop of peppers and seeding of salad greens, beets, and basil. I won't be seeding kale and chard until closer to mid-summer for the fall, perhaps trying some cole crops as well again then. Note the netting structure to keep the cats out until the plants are established.
Box 5 - herbs are doing well for the most part. The chervil plants have died back already, perhaps due to the fairly significant rain the past couple of months - they really don't seem to like too much water and dampness. A couple of lettuce volunteers really grew through April so we've been whittling away at the for salads while opening up the space for the growing thymes and oreganos which have also done very well along with the sage, marjoram, and chives that have replaced the ones in Box 1. I planted a few more parsleys and trying to get them established.
