Our garden is fairly good this year. I didn't get quite as ambitious as last year, but I have three tomatoes (and a volunteer near the fence!) lots of green beans, a few carrots, some beets and the peas were great in the late spring. There are also cukes and zukes, but the zukes aren't doing well, some sort of stem rot, and the cukes aren't out yet--blossoms but no fruit yet.
The beans were supposed to be half-runners, but they've damn near taken over the place. I'm glad I left the pea fence up.
I had one volunteer kale plant left from last year. In about two days some cabbage worms found it, called their friends and family, and stripped it bare.
That said, our CSA has been great this year! Already we have corn (early!), potatoes, melons, beans, cucumbers out the yahoo (I have pickles brining as I type), and even a couple of eggplants. We've already been and gone with turnips and beets and the greens. Yum! Can't wait to see what we have next week.
We had a pretty darn good harvest this summer, despite the intense heat and lack of rain. I would only water when it was desperate though. Can't stand the thought of the water bills skyrocketing for produce. The biggest disappointment was the green beans. They just didn't produce well, nor did I particularly like the variety that I'd chosen. (It looked good on the seed package!) The tomatoes did well--or rather one of them did. The others seemed to be the favorites of the pests. So I had lots of romas and nothing else. Guess I'll be making lots of sauce this winter, which is fine by me
But now I've done a fall planting of carrots, peas, spinach, lettuces, radishes, kale, swiss chard, brussels sprouts and beets. The okra is still producing well and since we just had a great rain last night (the first in ages), I expect that things will improve even more soon. I think of all the things we got out of our garden this year, the greens were our favorites. Being able to go out and pick the spinach and lettuce and, with a quick rinse, have a fresh salad was amazing.
I knew it was spring for sure when, about a week or so ago, the frogs appeared around the edge of our small pond.
So that was when I when through all my seeds and planted the ones that like slightly cooler weather--the spinach, lettuces, and peas. The peas are sprouting now and look great--the snap peas are a little more vigorous it seems than the shell peas. But still, it's exciting to see their little green heads poking up through the soil of my new raised bed.
The spinach and lettuces I had to replant after I realized that the dog and some neighborhood cats had been digging around (and other things) in that area. I went to Lowe's and got some critter deterrent to sprinkle around the garden. It's supposed to keep away just about any type of animal or bird. I'm glad it keeps out birds too (supposedly--we'll see) since I get large flocks of grackles and starlings in the spring. Ick.
I've seen a few of the spinach and lettuce sprouts, so here's hoping.
After bugging him all winter, P finally got his brother to come down and they ripped out the old railroad ties that were holding up the dirt in a (sort-of) raised bed that came with the house. The dirt in it was terrible, and it was not very deep. Now it's made of composite lumber, (no more creosote!!) and we hauled in a topsoil/compost mix from a local nursery. It looks dark and rich and gorgeous. I have already dropped in the spinach and lettuce seeds.
This year I am trying the square foot gardening system and we'll see how it goes. My bed is 6x12 feet, so that's a LOT of veggies, not to mention, we're not giving up our CSA (we don't grow things like corn or watermelons, not enough space) so I'm also planning on learning how to can and freeze more effectively.
it's been too wet and then too dry. The plants are just not doing well. The beans have so few beans. Everything seems to be growing very slowly. I am worried that we don't have enough pollinators too. I'm trying to hand-pollinate when I can. I'll have to be vigilant with watering this week. 90 degree temps and no rain in sight. But watering has been lots of fun. We got a fan sprinkler, so I water the garden on the one side, and watch the kid have fun on the other! Next spring (or maybe some this fall) we MUST work on getting the beds in better shape. I really think it's be better to tear out the landscape/railroad ties and make the beds with timber and then we can also extend them at the same time. Then we can amend the soil with a topsoil/compost mix that we can get at a nearby nursery. That's the plan anyway. We'll see.
It was garden planting time this weekend. We didn't get the bed enlarged like I had wanted (who knew landscape ties were so hard to find around here!) so I'm making do. But that's ok, since we also decided to support our local CSA co-op by ordering a half share for our family. I am very much looking forward to that and maybe even being forced out of my vegetable comfort zone a time or two. We also bought an upright freezer, so any extras won't go to waste. That, along with our Sam's membership should keep us eating pretty well for some time to come. L.O. loved helping me in the garden this year again. I am pretty sure that in at least a couple of spots there will be about 10 green bean plants vying for root space at once, but she had fun and did it by herself. We also got in the tomato seedlings, and some carrot, radish, and beet seeds. We'll see what survives and comes up. I've only eaten beets a few times, but I wanted to try something new. These are the golden variety, so I don't know how they will be different. I will have to start searching for recipes. Because of pregnancy and the arrival of the baby, I didn't get in the early crops like spinach, lettuce, turnips, and most sadly, the peas. Oh well, next year perhaps.
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Keep trying to get DH to reset the landscape ties that got washed out of place when our yard flooded last fall. Not happened thus far. Can't really plant much yet anyway--maybe some spinach. Anyway, the seeds that I started a few weeks ago look great. Little One loves to watch them and keep track of how big they've gotten. I've got lots of plans for the yard, both veggies and flowers/shrubs. Actually, I need to order a few things so they can be in in time for planting after last frost. Guess I'd better get on that. We're going to put some azaleas under the front window and a shrub rose in another bed along the front of the house. Pictures to come.
