The garden has exploded since the last update and new opportunities for learning keep presenting themselves. Hopefully, this blog will help us remember in the spring. The current major issue is our large brassicas. The cauliflower, broccoli and brussels sprouts with their massive leaves are serious space hogs. Our initial plantings of radishes, beets and spinach were harvested weeks ago, but the replacements that we have since sown have suffered in the shade of their larger neighbors. Next year, we're going to add more beds and group the big boys together.
I have abandoned my clipboard and note-taking and I'm not even using the garden planner now. I think it's useful initially, but in reality - once you've pulled up your early harvests your options for replacement crops are fairly limited. I took a trip to the local farm store this morning and picked up a new variety of radish and a couple different kinds of swiss chard to go where the spinach was. Once things cool off again, I may try to get one more crop of spinach in, but I'm not sure that there will be time for it.
The other major lesson that we've learned lately regards watering. We had been using the hose in the evenings or mornings, but it's woefully inefficient. The big brassica leaves work to their advantage there, too, funnelling a ton of water towards themselves and away from everything else. The grass and weeds outside the beds were getting a lot of the water and growing fast - requiring extra work to trim them back down. Going back to the SFG book, I read about the "hand-watering" method. Now, we keep a big tub full of water nearby and use a couple of old plastic drinking cups to dunk in and deliver water to each square once or twice a day. The water gets to the soil and roots instead of evaporating on (or burning) the leaves. If you fill the tub AFTER you do your watering, the water gets warmed by the sun/hot air and that is easier on the plants than getting blasted by the frigid water straight out of our well.
We made our first broccoli harvests yesterday, taking two big heads. Hopefully, they keep going and we'll get some secondary heads, too.
Here are views of each bed from a couple different angles.
Bed 1, Side 1: Good view of how the cauliflower, broccoli and brussels sprouts are dwarfing the basil. There are a couple of empty squares there on the right where I just planted swiss chard and beets. The tall thing on the right is cilantro. It's growing well, but the leaves don't look like the kind you get in the store. Must be a different variety.
Bed 1, Side 2: Something has really decimated the basil. I was close to yanking it today and putting something else in it's place. At least we were able to get some pesto made before it became bug food. Speaking of bugs, the Japanese beetles haven't been nearly as bad this year. Knock wood...
Bed 2, Side 1: A few beets left in one square, more giant brassicas and a glimpse of my sugar snap pea teepees.
Bed 2, Side 2: The girls are very pleased with their johnny jump-ups and the marigolds have finally blossomed (barely visible on the right).
Bed 3, Side 1: The shell peas have climbed twice as high as the sugar snap peas. This was another area with lots of room for improvement. Next year, we're putting our peas in a straight line and I'm going to run a single wall of nylon mesh for them to climb right down the middle of the squares.
Bed 3, Side 2: More johnny jump-ups (I'm going to encourage more veggies over flowers next year...) and a good view of the marigolds. The dahlias on the left-side are extremely leafy and seem to be thriving, but there are no signs of flowers yet...
All of the peas have been picked quite heavily and the girls like eating them right from the garden. I'm seeing some yellowing and wilting, so I think they are nearing the end, though.
Great start on one foot gardening.
Posted by: clark whittier | July 23, 2011 at 12:16 PM