New garden

Last year I had a terrific year for garlic, I had over 800 plants, I had a bulb over 4 OZ.  I did realize I had a problem with leek moths eating my garlic but all in all not too much of an issue.  I only lost a few bulbs and had minor damage to the rest.   The peppers and everything else did terrible, just wasn’t a good year for them.

 

This year there are huge changes.  The Barnyard garden is officially gone, the property was sold and I just need to harvest my garlic and that will be the end of that.  I have moved and started a new garden at my own place.  It is very large and has a number of things growing in it. I am going to try and post about this year to keep track of it.

 

I will be checking my garlic later today that I still have in at home, the scapes are all up and looking good, might try to weed them a little bit tonight.  Everything has been so busy I just haven’t had time to post about stuff, but am keeping a detailed spreadsheet for tracking, to help determine the differences year to year.

Finally Home

Finally back from vacation and before I even went into the house I had to check out the garden.  The peas are all fully mature; a number of them were taken off as shell peas because they were so big.  The tomatoes are significantly bigger and have flowers started on them.  Peppers looking a little wilted but not too bad.  They all have peppers started and with a little water should perk right up. 

The garlic is ready to pick now.  At least the bottom 3-4 leaves are dead on the plants.  The scapes are fully erect some even starting to have the umbels break open.  They will be harvested in the next week as time allows.

The broccoli, kale and lettuce are all looking rough.  The weeds are taking oven and because of the sandy soil they need water bad.  The carrots are also hurting for water, I weeded then before I left but because they are in raised boxes, they don’t even have the option of trying to pull water up from below.

I did manage to give everything a quick weed and lots of water, so hopefully tomorrow the plants will be looking a little perkier.

Everything In

It has been a while since I did a full status report on the garden and this morning I had time while it was raining to put one together. 

The corner bed that has the peas in it is doing very well.  They are all up and clinging to the trellis’s.  I have been winding the vines back into the trellis because they are reaching to the south east for the sun.  So far the weeds haven’t been too bad and I'm hoping the leaves that I laid down as mulch between the rows keep them that way.  I have had an issue with creeping grass the last few years and because it is almost impossible to get out, I'm hoping I can smother it.

The bottom bed with the tomatoes, peppers and beans has been finished.  The tomatoes are doing pretty good.  They have started to send out new roots and new shoots.  A couple plants were damaged during the storm we had last week but nothing that should effect their long term growth.  I also noticed that some leaves have bite marks in them but again nothing that should hurt the plants too much.  The leaves that were spread out are keeping the weeds down so far and you can still really smell them.  The peppers just like the tomatoes are sending out new roots and are setting new leaves.  The plants that I was worried about are looking better and the new leaves that are showing on them are darker.  The beans aren’t up yet, but should be through any day now.

The top bed with the garlic, asparagus, rhubarb and greens is the only bed to produce anything yet.  The garlic started to send out scapes around a week ago.  There are a couple scapes on the polish white that have started to curl and others on the northern Quebec that have not appeared yet.  The Viking asparagus that was transplanted last year has been doing very well.  I have been harvesting for about 5 weeks and think that it is time to let the remainder go to seed.  I have had a ton of asparagus beetles that are attacking them and want to make sure I have strong plants for the future.  The Mary Washington is doing better than they were, but I do have some plants that I thought should be stronger than they are.  There are also approximately 10 seeds that have taken seed by themselves.  All of the info I have read says to pick them out so they don’t compete with your other plants.  Because I appear to have something eating the crowns in the wintertime I might let some of them stay.

The rhubarb is doing very well; it has doubled in size since last year and is being picked regularly.  There is something that is nibbling on the leaves but we don’t eat the leaves anyways so it’s not a problem.  The kale, bok choy and broccoli are all going strong.  The transplants survived and all of the new seeds are coming up.  The bok choy has already started to go to seed, so they will be eaten as baby’s and then reseeded throughout the summer.  Of the 5 varieties of lettuce, 2 are fully up and the other 3 it’s hard to tell.  It looks like some of them are coming up but there are a lot of little sprouts there right now.

The carrots boxes are looking great.  I have carrots up in every box and every row I planted except for 2 rows of the scarlet Nantes.  I think it was because of the sandy soil and the fact they just needed a little more water than they were given.  Because I have tons of seeds I have replanted those rows.  In a few of the other varieties I tried to space the carrots exactly so that I didn’t waste seeds or have to thin them, but in a few cases if a couple seeds didn’t germinate I have a 4” gap. I will finish reseeding the very few bare spots next week.  The parsnips are doing just as well as the carrots.  I always read that it’s hard to get parsnip seeds to germinate, but in 2 years I have had great success.

There are also the herbs.  I noticed sprouts this morning in every box but will have to wait a few days to see if its weeds or herbs.  They are literally day old sprouts and could be anything, although I think they are my herbs coming up.

Last but not least is the flower garden. Although I don’t usually talk about it I recently found a plant that I have been looking for since last year. It’s a sedum called red dragon’s blood.  It is a low growing sedum and to be honest I liked it because of its name as well as the red colour that will give the flower bed a little more colour.

Although it’s not really part of my garden I put the fish out yesterday and here is a picture of them, they were moving pretty fast so just look at the blur in the bottom left.

Progress

On the way home from work I stopped at the barnyard garden to get a little work done. Using a bunch of the cardboard that I brought from work I mulched the paths with it and then covered them in the dead grass that was pulled out in the spring. I also laid out and started to make the hills for the 3 sisters plantings.  Not sure how I feel about the 3 sisters but we will see.  I am going to plant some of my pole beans there in hopes of being able to save the seeds and find out if I like the varieties. 

After coming home, the red veined dock that was purchased on the weekend was potted up and placed in the pond.  I also planted some watercress in a pot that was placed in the pond.  The bottoms of both pots are only and inch in the water, but the soil is absolutely saturated.  I did just use regular topsoil and probably should have used a sandier mix for drainage. I guess we will see how it works out and in future years change it.

In my own garden I noticed that the garlic is starting to put out scapes!  This is exciting news because based on what the scapes due on the one variety I should be able to tell what varietal family it belongs too.  I will also be letting some scapes mature to see what the bulbils look like.  

The lettuce, kale and bok choy that were planted a couple weeks ago have been coming up for about a week now.  Lots of sprouts and pleased with its performance so far.  A couple of the lettuce varieties aren’t up yet so we will have to see if I need to reseed or if the seeds weren’t viable anymore.

Feels Like Fall

I know it’s not fall yet, but this last week it sure has felt like it.  Nothing has changed in the garden too much, I am still picking cheery tomatoes every few days and there are lots of beans that need to be picked as well.  The same goes for the zucchini and cucumbers; they have hit their second wind and still producing well.  The plants are dying off a bit but I expect them to last a couple more weeks and then they are being pulled out anyways.  This past week a few red peppers have been picked and a number of them are starting to turn from yellow to orange to red. 

The root vegetables have been doing well, the carrots at the bottom are being picked regularly although some of them have been eaten by small little worms.  I think its carrot fly but at least they only infected some and not all.  I hope they have not gotten into the parsnips but I will have to wait and see.

 The potatoes at both my place and the field have done very well; the ones at the field due to the clay soil are all a nice mini size.  The ones at my place are starting to break through the soil in places and the plants are starting to die off.  The potatoes in the bottom garden did get hit pretty hard my potatoes bugs but by the time they showed up the plants had already flowered and had midsized formed tubers so I didn’t bother to powder them or anything.  I will be looking to harvest some of the potatoes on a regular basis for the next month for eating and then the remainder in mid-October when the plants die down.

The leeks look good and im just trying to think of what I can use them in.  The kale and bok choy that were planted a few weeks ago are looking ok.  They do have some bug damage but nothing too major. 

The garlic that is still in the garden is coming out of the ground this weekend.  About ¾ of the plants have at least 1 dead leaf and while they are all still very green I don’t want to leave them in the ground any longer especially since I want to replant them in October. 

The cover crop experiment has been a success!  The buckwheat is around a foot high and starting to flower.  I might give it another week and cut it down before it all goes to seed.  I am debating on planting some more in the top bed where the peas were.  That area is also getting more soil and a dressing of manure so I am not sure if it will even be worth planting any.

Garden Progress

The garden has been progressing along quite nicely!  I have taken a number of cutting of lettuce, kale and the musclun mix.  The last few days have been filled with rain, so not too much has happened in the garden but I did go out during one of the lulls and take some pictures.

This is a picture of my contanier garden.  It has just kept growing and may grow a little bit more but I doubt it. 

This is the most recent planting of carrots in pots.  They just came up a couple days ago.

These are the carrots that were planted about a month ago.  They need to be weeded, I have just been waiting till they are a litle bigger so I don't accidentally put out a late sprouter.

These are the very first ones I planted,