Garden Talk, Report, Story and Pictures – August 2013

First year I ever remember having rain in due season!  Don’t know if that will ever happen again but it’s been a wonderful experience.  Even with my many secrets to having lettuce to eat through a good part of July — having it every day in August has been a first even for me.

• Russian Kale seedlings are coming up in various places through out the garden.

• Cresses, arugula, chard, borage, magentaspreen, some purslane, and malabar — all ready for eating when I want.

(Try clicking on the pictures to enlarge them.)

 

• Beets still in the garden since spring, but most of them will be fine.

• Onions from Dixondale (as I mentioned in a previous post) didn’t suite me this year, but in spite of 3 rows not getting big enough, I still have plenty of onions for winter.

Another complaint is most of the other onions got way larger than I like.  Medium suites my needs better than gigantic or large.

And the variety, Ringmaster, which I substituted at the suggestion of Dixondale for a sweet onion that I was unable to get  —- was awful.  Poor taste and very dry and not good for eating fresh.  I’m using them in cooking only.

• All kinds of herbs including parsley, sorrel, and cutting celery.  Alice (friend and reader out west) told me about cutting celery last year.  Have really enjoyed having it to season various dishes – especially soups.

• Only one red pepper so far. ( Used it with my one eggplant.)  But the plants are heavy with fruit (both peppers and eggplant) and I’m look forward to having lots of them by fall.

 

 

 

• Making my first batch of roasted tomato sauce tomorrow. Tomato plants are heavy with fruit. I’ll do an entire post and report on those at the end of the season.  Some of my plants have resisted early blight.  Others new varieties were very prone to it.  My planting in the stubble of the rye that I planted last fall was very successful.

 

 

 

• Have been eating potatoes almost every other day since May. Still have tons of gorgeous potatoes (still stored in the ground).  They have been especially large and beautiful this year.  Vole holes under EVERY plant — but oddly enough — damage has not been bad. Potato beetles showed up this month.

• Cukes are almost finished.  I’ve not seen too many cuke beetles but they’re there because my cukes have succumbed to the wilt virus.

• Squash have been finished — thanks to the borer. I used a hand tool to dig the ground in those areas and look for pupae of the borer.  Didn’t find any. Will go ahead and plant my cover crops in those areas.

• About half the garden beds have been planted with cover crops.  Still have the other half to plant.  Covers used so far are field peas, winter rye, oats, and buckwheat.  I want to plant some fava beans too.

 

 

• Planted some carrots earlier.  You can see in the above picture they’re doing well.  Something got to the ones I transplanted this month except for about four.

• My garden doesn’t have room for beans until sometime in July.  Bean plants are spectacular this year.  We’ve been enjoying snap beans for over a month.  I picked yesterday and wasn’t going to pick that patch again today — but it turns our there was another pound of beans on the plants. The beans I’m speaking of are in the above picture – top center.

• I’m trying pinto beans (two varieties) for the first time EVER.  I planted a 2 foot square of one kind and put a “tomato” cage over it for the beans to climb on.  (They were suppose to be the bush variety . Ha!)  If I do well with them, I’ll increase the amount next year. It’d be nice to have my own dried beans.

 

• I have 3 spots of snap bush beans (Provider) in the garden.  Shown below is the 3rd planting. August 5th I planted several spots with Masai snap beans. My seed was from 2008.  They’ve germinated already. (Masai is my favorite fall bean. Just beautiful and very prolific.)

 

 

•  Last year I finally planted Henderson Butter Beans. (A bush baby lima bean.) They were so delicious we just couldn’t get enough! They’re small beans — not big like Fordhook.  I’ve got two plantings in the garden.  One is seen below; the second is a bit larger.

 

 

A story in closing:

A baby rabbit got into the garden about 2 weeks ago.  He (or she) is no longer than 4 inches.  Bill found and patched the hole.  The baby rabbit is still in the garden.

Everyday I look for him to try to put an end to his thinking that my garden is his permanent home.  He’s hard to find because there are so many places to hide.

The other day I left the gate open thinking maybe — if nothing else — I could chase him and he’d run out.

Well – I found him when I cut the flowering buckwheat in a bed. He went to the very next bed and started making a meal of lettuce.

I started his way — he ran back — right past the open gate and headed for some other lush place at the top of the garden.

I’m sure he thinks he’s living in paradise.  Nothing to bother him.  Mrs. McGregor (of Peter rabbit fame) doesn’t have a gun and she’s very slow.  There’s protection from rain, wind and sun.  There’s everything to eat that one can imagine.

And my newly planted tender Masai beans are up 2 inches and so are my peas….

I have 10 varieties of lettuce started August 5th in jugs. They’re up about 1/4 inch. I think it might be wise to wait a while to transplant them to the garden. 🙁

 

Organic gardening is easy, effective, efficient — and it’s a lot healthier.

______

All content including photos is copyright by TendingMyGarden.com  All Rights Reserved.