High near 70, guess if I am going to talk garden this would be the day. We may even put the tomatoes and peppers in the ground this weekend... unseasonably late, but then it is unseasonably cold so...
I have lots of pictures of the gardens, but they are still on the camera and Kat has the camera at VBS this week. I will post them later, I guess.
Garden #1 is all corn. no picture... ???
Garden #2 is all potatoes. no picture...???
Garden #3
has cole plants, a nice beautiful spot for some tomatoes and peppers right alongside an experiment I am trying this year: a salad section. It is scatter seeded lettuces, arugula, radishes, lisbon onions etc. My theory is that I can go out with a bowl and pick a giant salad right there... we shall see if it ever gets warm enough for the seeds to germinate. Also out in Garden #3 are some spices, cilantro and some okra... hmmm... that is all I can think of right off hand.
Garden #3 is one of the two best soil gardens we have. It has been years of composting and constant mulching. The soil is just so beautiful I love to work in that garden. The other gardens are "newer," having been carved out of the sod in more recent years. I have every expectation that they will be just as great as time goes by.
We do not really "row crop" in the tradition way. We use a combination of wide beds and a variation on the French Intensive Method (which we learned about way back when we first heeded the call to grow our own food and read everything we could from Rodale's Organic Gardening to Mother Earth News to Countryside Magazine)... I like to think of it as "The Bonk Intensive Method." Our "rows" are really wide, raised beds, and we plant as much as we can get in a bed. The valley between the wide rows is where we walk. It is also where we put the weeds as we go through the garden weeding. Instead of rows, we scatter plant (think like salt and peppering the soil) and cover with a layer of the beautiful dirt. We do not thin anything. Our thinning takes place as the plants start maturing. We take out the biggest carrots or beets or what have you, and use them. The remaining plants now have more room to get bigger.
Garden #4
is beets, scattered planted as per the Bonk Intensive Method and green and wax beans. The beans are the closest thing we have to row planting... they are much easier to go through and harvest if they are somewhat lined up :) We plant very close together and still get a pretty great harvest because our soil is so good what with all the composting and mulching. Here, too, it is a "raised bed" type thing where we put all the pulled weeds in the valleys between the beds.
Also in Garden #4 will be the cukes and dill... if we ever dare to put them out and risk the frost.
Garden #5 ( also no picture?? Not sure what happened to my pics) will be tomatoes, carrots and peppers (almost all of which are hot, for making hot sauce and salsa). We are seriously thinking of putting them out there today or tomorrow... The lows are looking right around 40 degrees for the next week, which is not great tomato growing weather, but what can a farmer do?
Garden #6 was the old guy's experiment garden on top of the septic tank last year. It was a whopping success, giving us lots of acorn squash. Unfortunately when John's mom died it was one of the things we just forgot about and lost all the squash in a hard freeze. And this year, since we have not dared to put anything as delicate as squash out yet, we will probably not do the acorn (oh I LOVE acorn squash), but we will give a go at crook neck squash and zucchini.
This is such a given here that I almost forgot to mention it: We are totally organic... no chemicals of any kind, EVER. We used to have our gardens marked off by railroad ties, but those are gone now too, what with the creosote etc that can leach into the soil.
Well I have avoided laundry long enough... would you believe it has even been too cold to hang clothes out on the line? Maybe they would still dry, but I am not about to stand in a cold wind, hanging up wet clothes,with my hands like ice and a stocking cap on my head... in the middle of June... I have my limits.
I have lots of pictures of the gardens, but they are still on the camera and Kat has the camera at VBS this week. I will post them later, I guess.
Garden #1 is all corn. no picture... ???
Garden #2 is all potatoes. no picture...???
Garden #3
has cole plants, a nice beautiful spot for some tomatoes and peppers right alongside an experiment I am trying this year: a salad section. It is scatter seeded lettuces, arugula, radishes, lisbon onions etc. My theory is that I can go out with a bowl and pick a giant salad right there... we shall see if it ever gets warm enough for the seeds to germinate. Also out in Garden #3 are some spices, cilantro and some okra... hmmm... that is all I can think of right off hand.Garden #3 is one of the two best soil gardens we have. It has been years of composting and constant mulching. The soil is just so beautiful I love to work in that garden. The other gardens are "newer," having been carved out of the sod in more recent years. I have every expectation that they will be just as great as time goes by.
We do not really "row crop" in the tradition way. We use a combination of wide beds and a variation on the French Intensive Method (which we learned about way back when we first heeded the call to grow our own food and read everything we could from Rodale's Organic Gardening to Mother Earth News to Countryside Magazine)... I like to think of it as "The Bonk Intensive Method." Our "rows" are really wide, raised beds, and we plant as much as we can get in a bed. The valley between the wide rows is where we walk. It is also where we put the weeds as we go through the garden weeding. Instead of rows, we scatter plant (think like salt and peppering the soil) and cover with a layer of the beautiful dirt. We do not thin anything. Our thinning takes place as the plants start maturing. We take out the biggest carrots or beets or what have you, and use them. The remaining plants now have more room to get bigger.
Garden #4
is beets, scattered planted as per the Bonk Intensive Method and green and wax beans. The beans are the closest thing we have to row planting... they are much easier to go through and harvest if they are somewhat lined up :) We plant very close together and still get a pretty great harvest because our soil is so good what with all the composting and mulching. Here, too, it is a "raised bed" type thing where we put all the pulled weeds in the valleys between the beds.Also in Garden #4 will be the cukes and dill... if we ever dare to put them out and risk the frost.
Garden #5 ( also no picture?? Not sure what happened to my pics) will be tomatoes, carrots and peppers (almost all of which are hot, for making hot sauce and salsa). We are seriously thinking of putting them out there today or tomorrow... The lows are looking right around 40 degrees for the next week, which is not great tomato growing weather, but what can a farmer do?
Garden #6 was the old guy's experiment garden on top of the septic tank last year. It was a whopping success, giving us lots of acorn squash. Unfortunately when John's mom died it was one of the things we just forgot about and lost all the squash in a hard freeze. And this year, since we have not dared to put anything as delicate as squash out yet, we will probably not do the acorn (oh I LOVE acorn squash), but we will give a go at crook neck squash and zucchini.
This is such a given here that I almost forgot to mention it: We are totally organic... no chemicals of any kind, EVER. We used to have our gardens marked off by railroad ties, but those are gone now too, what with the creosote etc that can leach into the soil.
Well I have avoided laundry long enough... would you believe it has even been too cold to hang clothes out on the line? Maybe they would still dry, but I am not about to stand in a cold wind, hanging up wet clothes,with my hands like ice and a stocking cap on my head... in the middle of June... I have my limits.
Garden #7... Joshua's strawberry garden. There are 500 strawberry plants here! If it ever warms up enough to get these buggers to grow, we are all in for a real treat :)
1 comment:
Wow!! Impressive !
B
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