Unfortunately most of the seedlings I had transplanted in the vegetable prison did not survive. The experiment of using egg boxes to start the seeds failed. There was not enough dirt for the roots to grow; and create a healthy starting point for for the transplant. Next year will need large starter pots. Thinking of using the yoghurt cups.
The seedling plants that did survive were what I originally had though were zuchini plants but turned out to be pumpkin plants. So now I have a veggie bed full of pumpkin plants. That is what you get when you mess up the labels.
To replace the seedlings we went to the Ashfield Farmer's market to buy some plants to replace the failed starters. We bought 6 tomato plants, 12 kale plants and 6 cucumber plants. From the CSA I bought 2 Zuchini plants.
What did work well was the arugula which I had direct seeded end of April. I already had got multiple harvests from them, although now they start to flower. as long as I keep cutting the tops, there will be leaves to harvest. We did the same last year.
The spinach had a tough time. Only half of the seeds came out, and only just the last 2 weeks started to grow large enought leaves to edit. I reseeded the empty spots early June and they started to come up.
The radishes also had a slow start, but now after 6 weeks, I could harvest the first few marble sized radishes.
Other directly seeded plants that do well are the beans and the peas. I had 2 kinds of beans. Some of the haricot bean plants have their leaves being eating. Not sure what causes it, an insect or a caterpillar.
To protect the newly planted kale from the white butterfly's juvenile cabbage worm, I bought netting and flexible tubing and created a little tent over the kale bed.
I used the same technique on the strawberry patch as some of the first green fruit are starting to grow. Last year some animal: bird or chipmunk also beat us to it. Hopefully the screening will protect them this year.
Overall good progress. Next steps will be to create support for pea, tomato and cucumber plants.