Lots of rain here, too. But I'm still grateful for it, we have been at drought or near-drought conditions for 6 of the past seven years. If it keeps coming down, I won't have much of a garden, but the watertable might finally get replenished. DH's lettuce has been doing just fine in the coldbed, although an invasion of slugs made a lot of leaves disappear. I reminded him to put the coffee grounds around the plants, so the new leaves are now growing perfect. He has a mental glitch about the coffee, applying after a slug attack and then not again until another invasion and another reminder. The peas are starting to bloom. The potatoes are growing faster than I can keep the stems covered. No cabbage, kale, or cauliflower. These normally are grown by DH and this year he didn't start any seeds, and it's been too wet to seed directly. I guess I'll see if any of the local nurseries have cabbage plants. It feels strange to be in the middle of May and most of the garden still looks like winter. It's just been too wet to get it ready for the seedlings.

I was going to ask the same question about my radishes and chard, which did the exact same thing. I'm wondering if theres some missing micronutrient in the soil. But I can say that with the chard, which were sort of laboring when they were all bent to the side, I piled up some soil/compost mix around them so that it supported them straight and they had that skinny crooked bit supported with soil, and the week after doing that they really just grew like crazy. Its not scientific research, but on my experience I'd try to add another half inch of soil to the top and help straighten them out.

I started a flat of cole crops first of july. I put them out in my Hoop house(which doesn't have the cover on in the summer)the first or second week of August. I did 2 kinds of sprouting broccoli, which are specifically bred to overwinter. You cut the head at the first sign of it, and they are supposed to sideshoot like mad real early in the spring and continue for some time. The seed pack had days to harvest as 220, reflecting the need to grow in summer, overwinter, then sprout through spring and into early summer. They are supposed to be extremely cold hardy, and if I remember they have some cross with kale in them. Kind of a commitment, but I'm going for winter/early spring harvests out of the hoophouse as much as possible. I also had January King cabbage in the same flat. The sprouting Broccoli plants are about 2 feet tall and wide, so they are big. The cabbage(again, a winter variety) is just starting to form heads now. They are also bigger plants than I was expecting. We have a few more days in the 80's, next week should be in the 60's for a high, and I doubt we will climb into the 70's much after the cold front comes through, so I will be covering soon. I was also thinking of putting in some fall clearance plants from the nursery, but I don't know that they will have enough time to mature into anything. My understanding is for the plants to be approaching maturity when the cold comes, and they grow under protection(slowly) throughout the cold winter and you harvest them as needed. Come spring warm up and longer photo-period, they start bolting. I dunnno, might try anyway. Check out Territorial Seed's winter growing catalog, there is some cool stuff in it, pun intended.

Betty, The aspargus news is great. Hearing that cabbage worms are that far north this early is not so great. Just because I said I 'rarely' see the diamondback moths and their cabbage looper offspring here, one of the moths came and landed right in the mulch beside me the next day, as if to say "I'm here!" So, I am sure I'll find some cabbage loopers on something any day now. Heather, Have you seen any lady bugs around yet? If they are there, they'll gobble up the aphids in no time at all. At my house, when I first see aphids in the spring, if I ignore them, the lady bugs will show up approximately 3 to 7 days later and start eating the aphids. I haven't seen any ladybugs yet here, but then maybe I just haven't had anything for them to eat yet. It is still pretty early. I don't think I've ever seen aphids on onions so am unsure if aggressive action should be taken. If you don't think they're doing too much damage, I'd wait and see if the rain handles them. Of course, if spraying with neem would make you happy because it is one less thing to worry about, then go ahead and zap them with it so you just don't even have to worry about it. The neem isn't going to hurt. If the aphids are on the peas, I'd spray with neem if the lady bugs aren't around. Aphids can be quite damaging to peas and lots of folks don't check the undersides of the leaves for them, so don't realize they have an aphid problem until the leaves start showing symptoms. It is so much better if you can stop them before the leaves start showing damage. Generally, the only insect I worry about with onions is thrips, although I rarely see them here. I watch carefully for the thrips because they can do a great deal of damage to onions. I am seeing leaf miner damage on my cole crops and spinach, but that's pretty typical for this early in the year. I just ignore it and the miners generally go away. Dawn