Category: overview

I fell off the blogging wagon. At least trying to update at the end of the month. Row by row:

• Garlic bed. I added a layer of compost and a layer of leaf mulch to two of the four beds. The others are still occupied with a huge squash vine which came over the fence. I bought Music, Spanish Roja, and Russian Red garlic at the Common Ground Fair. Still too early to plant.
• Compost pile. Has been sifted with Sam’s solar powered trommel. So we’re starting to use the empty side again.
• Flower row. Has been a joy but kind of messy at this point. Sunflowers in various stages. A decorative allium blooming, but overrun by a squash. A few dahlia still looking pretty and interesting sacred tobacco plants doing well. Goldenrod is done. Poppy seeds are harvested. I took a jarful to the fair. Next year I’ll put in packets ahead of time at home.
• Fruit yard. Still a few strawberries. The grape vines have grown huge. The dye garden is still flowering here and there, cosmos and chrysanthemum. A few coreopsis. The rhubarb has disappeared, I hope it comes back next spring. Blackberries and raspberries were a disappointment this year. Not much fruit.
• Three sisters row. Still green beans here and there. The squash vines are drying and revealing mostly pumpkins it looks like. A few others in there. The corn was not productive. We have to remember to dig the potatoes that are in there! Probably another few weeks before we harvest the squash.
• Broccoli row. Still eating florets here and there. Next year – more deCicco, less AspaBroc. And no cauliflower. It was a waste of space and I pulled it up today.
• Pea trellis etc. The peas are about 8 inches tall, no flowers yet. Some broccoli rabe, very spindly. Spinach and lots of green onion from seed, as well as two year old green onion.
• Root veg 1. New carrots coming along. Beets still coming along. Parsnips in ground. I cut the two year old parsnip and didn’t collect any seed. I think most of the seed was eaten (?).
• Hardy greens row. Chard looks great. Radicchio is gone, we ate it, was delicious. Still some Salanova and escarole. And something called Turkish rocket, which I’m hesitant to eat. Also, cilantro seeds waiting to be collected.
• Root veg 2. Some nice carrots harvested a few days ago. Lots more. Maybe a few more fingerlings, mostly dug. Harvested the soybeans and drying them.
• Annual rye cover crop. I have three patches of it planted. New this year. It looks lush and green.
• Tomato row. We’ve been harvesting every few days and canning plain sauce. Today just started freezing some, ad the shelf is full and we’re out of quart jars. Next year: want more San Marzano, fewer cherry, and more tomatoes for making salsa – one item we eat a lot of and are still dependent on the grocery store.
• Zucchini, etc. Hopi dye sunflowers almost ready to harvest. Chinese cabbage overwhelmingly huge. The costata romanesca zucchini has finally taken off, and we have quite a few patty pan too.
• Corner trellis. Pretty good crop of cucumbers. I made five pints of pickles a few days ago. Kale looks good in there. The arugula also good. The seeds I planted later haven’t done much.
• More squash along the chicken run fence. Honeynut – new this year, should be interesting! And pumpkins. I have so many pumpkins.
• Community Garden. Harvesting onions. All the yellow, some of the red, a few white. Curing them in the woodshed. Harvested all the shallots. And all the fennel except one, hoping for some seed. Still have leeks and cabbages growing there.
• Hoophouse. Four raised beds of fall and winter greens coming along nicely. Some hot peppers hung and turning red. Some green peppers harvested. In general, not happy with peppers or eggplants. Lots of space and minimal production.
• Herbs. Plenty of parsley!!! Some thyme and oregano. Harvested the basil from the hoophouse, the basil in the herb garden did nothing. Some green shiso in a pot, going to seed. Will try red shiso again. Rosemary looks nice.

All in all, a good year. Only major pest was potato beetles. Have some changes to make next year, of course! Still busy with everything in the gardens, plus apple picking. More leisure to blog soon to come though.

Photos!

I’ll go row by row from the back:

• Garlic harvested and curing. I haven’t done anything else with that bed.
• Flower row. Healthy sunflowers and goldenrod. A few daisies. Sacred tobacco blooming. Poppies are done, but I’ll collect the seeds. Dahlias seem out of place there. I want to add New England asters very badly!
• Three sisters row. I have to pick green beans every day and already have a lot in the freezer and six pints of dilly beans. Show no signs of stopping. The squash are dying back a bit but I haven’t been able to see what all is growing there. Definitely some pumpkins and buttercup. Corn is always dicey here. I could skip it if it weren’t a traditional “sister.” The horseradish is huge and spreading. Volunteer potatoes left from last year in this row suffered from uncontrolled potato beetle.
• Broccoli row. Still eating side shoots. They are small but there’s enough planted to make a meal. The few cauliflower plants in here never headed up properly.
• Fava bean row. Fava beans were harvested August 11 and shucked by an enthusiastic group of volunteers (we fed them). I replaced them with peas to be grown on a trellis, spinach, cilantro and broccoli rabe, direct seeded. This row also has blue kale, green onions and an artichoke. The kale was bothered by flea beetle and should have been covered. The green onions are from last year and just self seeded prolifically so I have a jillion sprouts and a jar of saved seed. We are not gobbling the artichokes but they have been fun to grow.
• Root veg 1. The second year parsnip is huge. I’ll have to deal with the seeds. The first year parsnips look great, trouble free. We do not eat turnips, it turns out. We like beets but they are so finicky. I haven’t perfected my ability to grow them although I keep trying. Top of this row is a succession planting of carrots which are about two inches tall.
• Mixed greens. I planted most things too close together, especially escarole which grows into a huge plant. We really enjoyed Salanova lettuce (red butter variety). The radicchio has been very interesting and is still forming solid heads. A beautiful plant. The tatsoi suffered badly from flea beetle and was too unsightly to enjoy. The red orach is a cool plant, an interesting tall accent, but we honestly didn’t eat much of it. The chard from Chuck’s seedlings is big and awesome and we’re eating it!
• Soy beans and root veg 2. The soybeans were an experiment. The plants are turning yellow. We’ll see if we eat the beans. The fingerlings were brutally attacked by potato beetle and we didn’t really deal with it. Nevertheless we are enjoying a nice crop. One of my favorite garden veggies. The carrots are doing well, I’ve harvested a few. They suffer from being planted too thickly- my thinning is inadequate. I’ll try to improve.
• Tomato row. Doing well. Have eaten a few of them. We have a deep hunger for garden tomatoes and I’m not sure this will be enough.
• Lastly, summer squash, Chinese cabbage and sunflowers. Plus a huge rudbeckia lacinata “Wild Goldenglow” and scarlet runner beans on the fence. A happy row. The squash has not been prolific, just sulking along. Too much cabbage – they are huge. The flowers make me happy.

Okay, a photo break:

Just a few more notes for now. The corner trellis is producing kale and cucumbers, a little bit of arugula. I reseeded lettuce but it’s not germinated yet, probably due to scanty watering. We will have dry scarlet runner beans to eat this winter. And there are a lot of squash growing up the side of the chicken run.

There’s more – the herb garden, the hoophouse, the community garden plots, the fruit yard, the orchard (peaches!). But too much to cover in this post so I’ll wait for another day.

A definite sense that the season is on the wane. Thankful for this year’s bounty.

Plants are huge and mostly healthy except for a bad infestation of potato beetle on the fingerlings. I took a lot of photos. But still missed the herb beds and the orchard. Photos taken around 4 pm, sun already low in the West.