It’s time for an update on our veggie garden. Sumer 2016 meals promise to feature many varieties of healthy veggies, as each of our raised beds is now planted to capacity. In the past couple of weeks, I transplanted all seedlings from the greenhouse trays into beds and also sowed seed directly into many beds to help with continual harvests.

At opposite ends of the garden, corner beds feature garlic and onions. This year I’m growing two varieties of each, and it’s my first time growing purple onions.

Beets are coming in slowly, both golden and chioggia varieties. I just sowed the chioggia, a lovely striped beet sometimes called the candy cane beet, in mid April.

The rest of this downhill row of beds is filled with broccoli, cauliflower, and kale seedlings.

Beds closest to the raspberry hedge this year are planted with Bronze Beauty lettuce, four varieties of carrots I wrote about here, and two varieties of spinach, Gigante d’Inverno and Merlo Nero, which grow in the bed closest to the garlic.

Love those baby carrot tops!

Turning the corner by the garlic bed and looking uphill toward the garden shed, the final three veggie beds contain Romaine and Prizehead lettuces, more cauliflower and broccoli, plus a deep bed filled with two varieties of cabbages.

We’ve been harvesting asparagus all month, and it looks like we’ll have plenty through May.

Pea and bean seedlings are beginning their climb up both trellises in the middle of the garden, with new sprouts pushing through the soil each day, meaning we’ll have a nice extended harvest.

The potatoes have begun sprouting in their rows. All that awaits planting are the cucurbit hills in the center of it all. May’s temperatures are more conducive to those young seedlings’ success, so I’m waiting to get in the zucchini, squash, cucumbers, and melons.