The spring in a few posts

Last year I finally planted strawberries after many suggestions from the non-weeders. This year, sure enought---lots of strawberrries. I think we would have had more, but I didn't put clean straw on in the spring (at least I'm guessing that's why so many rotted). Despite the losses, we had two cups of strawberries very day for a week and are still getting about one cut every other day. And that's only after one year!

Of course, I had to put netting over the raised bed. That was after the first 6-8 berries that ripened were hit by birds (I know because I saw them.) Fortunately, this is much easier than for blueberries.

Strawberries! Notice the netting.

I had tried seeing if my (incompletely grown) kale and kholrabi would overwinter. However, all of the plants bolted once the weather got nicer. So that experiment didn't work too well.

This year: I put in a 3'x3' raised bed for asparagus. Followed the directions---and, for the longest time, nothing. However, I just today saw the ninth and final plant starting to grow, so it looks like we will have asparagus in the future. Although we may have to wait another year or two.

A New Season (But Blogged Late)

Actually, I began gardening back in January when I tried planting some onion seeds. And I resolved to post to the blog...and didn't.

The onion seeds did not work nearly was well as I hoped. I got plants in only about 1/3 of the pots, and since I put several seeds in each pot, the germination rate was a lot lower than that. I'll have to reconsider this for next year.

The result: I have about 20 onions from seed and the rest---30-40---from sets, like I've done before.

On the other hand, the garlic looks great. I've planted both garlic and onions much closer than before, and this seem to be just fine (we'll see come June and July, of course).

And the kholrabi and kale I left to overwinter? They bolted before producing anything worthwhile. That's another failed experiment.

On the positive side, I put in three currant bushes and they seem to have been established. And the fig and grape survived the winter, too.

I think those are going to be bunches of grapes!

The Great Pea Structure

Ha! It's been a while. The tomatoes are just about finished, and I'm well into fall crops at this point.

My big thing is peas. Last year I tried fall peas for the first time. It worked, but the string trellis between two plastic poles was not exactly sturdy. So this year I put my construction skills to work, using plumbing pipe. Here's a picture:


Did it work? Well, so far it's survived a hurricane, tons of rain, and the peas are now one-third of the way up. And no sign of any problems. Did I mention that there are some pea pods showing? This looks good.

Meanwhile, I've planted Kale and Kholrabi for the fall. With less sunshine these will grow more slowly---we'll see what we get.

The grape vine suddenly started growing a lot in August. I put up some trellises for it to grow on, but I can see it has the potential to take over that back wall. Look for some grapes next year!

Lots of Tomatoes (among other things)

First, onions and garlic harvested a few weeks ago. I decided to try drying some of the garlic in braids, which is something I've read about. It worked, but I didn't do display quality here:

Better luck next year, I guess.

I also pulled up the onions and set them to dry. Of course, it rained on them a couple of times. We'll see how they cured. They are now in the basement and won't be used immediately because we have plenty of fresh ones from the CSA.

More pickles came:



Some of these were destined for dill pickles. I made two types this year: with and without a quarter teaspoon of hot pepper flakes. Lots of fresh dill in each jar. (Unfortunately, not fromthe garden, as the dill didn't do well in the front).

And then, the tomatoes. Wouldn't you know it: I am learning about more things that can go wrong with tomatoes. Like yellow shoulders which is apparently likely due to low potassium. Can't do anything about it now, I'll have to wait for next spring. They still make good sauce though, using my new technique (a food mill).

Since excessive heat may also cause this, I've taken to letting the tomatoes ripen inside (another Internet suggestion). Fortunately, we have an extra room which is ideal for this:

Oh yes, we have this year's variety of cherry tomatoes---"chocolate cherry." Mine don't look like the picture, however, and they seem to keep the green shoulders:
It's a little hard to see, but there are two little sweet peppers on the side. This is a pepper variety I picked up at the last minute at Home Depot. Haven't tried them yet.

Needed: Cucumber ideas

Well, I wanted cucumbers. And I got them. A lot of them. They keep appearing---every time I go outside to look at the plants, I see a couple more that I missed.

Only problem is that I don't need that many. And, for making pickles, I should pick a bunch at once. Since the Alibi cucumbers aren't producing a lot yet, I'm not ready to do this (not to mention that I don't have time to make pickles right now.)

So I'm looking for recipes. Did you know you could grill cucumbers?

Tomatoes!

Yes, they are starting to turn red! I think this may be the earliest we've had tomatoes. Also, I figured out how to stake them (I hope) so that the cages will remain upright. This involves pegs which are apparently designed for trees, but as long as it works, right?

Now to find cucumber recipies. Too many all of a sudden. Too bad the main cucumber eater isn't here.

Garlic time

I pulled up the garlic. There's a lot because the extra garlic in the back---which I didn't plant, it "naturalized" got included in the harvest. And there were a lot of bulbs back there. I did this once before some years ago, but I must have missed one or two. At least we'll have a lot of garlic, plus I'll try to save more for planting this year. Also, I tried braiding some garlic bulbs this year. We'll see how they come out.

Cucumbers are maturing at the rate of one every other day or so. Khlolrabi and Kale are still good.

I checked my records, and the earliest I've ever had a ripe tomato was July 16.The plants are completely out of control, and several have pushed over their cages. The usually happens in August.

Oh, and I think the birds have been getting to the raspberries. Not sure I begrudge them at this point, because we got a huge amount before they came in. Still, I wouldn't have minded more...