Fall Clean-Up

The small garden boxes did well this year. There is still asparagus growing in the back planter, but the front two are cleared out for next year.

I raked into the front two planter boxes some compost crop mix seed from Bountiful Gardens. It is a mix of wheat, vetch, rye and fava beans. It is supposed to fix nitrogen into the soil.

The large planter box did poorly. This is the second year in a row. I pulled up the plants and, again, there is a grub infestation. It seems the Japanese beetles will reproduce here every year. However, I cannot blame the grubs for the poor spring, because they were not there until August this year, because I manually picked them all out before doing the spring transplant.


I suspect the soil is diseased (blight?), because of the black spots on my tomato leaves. But just to make sure it is not lack of nutrition, I tested the soil today. The pH test reports the soil is still 6.5 (slightly acid). That is the same pH I measured in 2005, which was one of my best years.

My plan is to bring in new dirt and rebuild the planter box this spring. No sense in putting compost seed into this dirt.

Canning

Cooked down the last two to three weeks of ripe tomatoes to make 6 pints of marinara sauce. My own recipe simply adds onion, olive oil, garlic, red wine and spices to the tomato sauce. I like to reheat it with sliced mushrooms and use it over pasta with Parmesan cheese.

Old Garden Pictures

Here is a link to my garden pictures from 2005 to 2008:
http://www.pbase.com/ercarlso/garden

Ripe Fruits

Harvest has been a bit late this year. First batch of melons came during the end of July, and continued for a month. Second batch seems to be coming.






Have had cherry tomatoes for several weeks, but this is the first big batch of normal tomatoes. Cooked these down into sauce.

Interesting Harvest

Picked this funny radish for salad today. I saw the top of the radish poking out of the dirt, but when I pulled it up, two more radishes were chained along with it! All of them tasted very good.

New Growth

Two weeks ago (June 27), I pulled up the snow peas and directly sowed these "Blue Lake" green beans from Bountiful Gardens. They are already looking pretty vigorous!

Also harvested some radish (not shown). Also started harvesting nectarines this week (July 10).

Transplanted 4 "Purple Passion" Asparagus seedlings purchased from Yamagami's today (July 11). They are USDA Organic, grown at Sweetwater Nursery in Sebastopol, CA. Supposed to be "more tender" than green types of asparagus.




Earth (Box) Day: July 11.

Decided to give my new EarthBox a try. It was a gift from Horace. The left picture is after filling with dirt. The right picture is after everything was planted. Here are "Mixed Greens Lettuce" seedlings I purchased from Yamagami's today. Also some "Rocket Arugula" I grew from Burpee seed.

Some Progress

Plants have not been growing very well this summer, although there is some progress. Right now, I think the issue is not very deep soil in the main bed, and also a failure to rotate crops from the previous years. This zucchini plant has only yielded one so far. This is highly unusual for zucchini.



This flowering squash on the lower left should be vining out across the rocks by now, but seems content to stay small. The Radish on the lower right looks just fine, but it is in a newer bed that does not seem to lack nutrients (or depth).













Tomato plant on the left is a hybrid I grew from Burpee seed, and put into the planter box on the North side of the house. Seems to be growing well despite a late start. The Cherry Tomato (below) is a weak looking plant, but still gave some fruit, yay!










Again, we have some nice looking melons (two kinds shown here) coming from the newer planter box with newer dirt. These seem to be doing fine.













Cute little corn growing in the main bed looks good, but is a bit stunted. It isn't any taller than me.

These pictures were taken around July 1, 2009.