what I've planted so far

I need to write this down, for crop rotation purposes to avoid pests.

From my backdoor, straight ahead and against the fence from the far right to about 20' left: okra.
Blank space to the left for about 15', then sweet potatoes (three varieties).  Blank space (mizuna once I beat off the ants?), then some cabbage and broccoli against the fence to the front fence.

In some spots around, beans and watermelon, to the left of the raised beds.  Far right raised bed, swiss chard and lettuce.  Middle bed, beets and carrot.  Left bed, sweet potatoes and now garlic and mizuna. 

Clearly I need more space to plant! :) 

a planting day, hello fall

Just planted:

garlic (softneck, silver white)
mizuna (a type of mustard green that I'm very fond of)
cabbage (Copenhagen Market)
leek (King Richard)
celery (Utah)
broccoli (di cicco)

One of the beds that I'd prepped and covered had a ton of fire ants in it, so I need to deal with that. 

In the meantime, in a raised bed I put in garlic and mizuna.  There had been a sweet potato plant there, just one, and its roots were all over but none formed ready to harvest.  Bummer.

In a small bed that I just prepped and mixed with compost (and used a colander to sift out the rocks, which I should probably do everywhere), I put in a few leeks and celery seeds.

In another bed that I had earlier prepped, I put in broccoli and cabbage.  Not much, maybe just five plants each. Trying to see what's growing well here.  I also put in a bag of compost there.  (it's a compost mix that I buy locally from a company that collects food and vegetative waste from supermarkets and such and then composts it.)

I'm afraid to tally up how much money I'm spending on gardening.  I need to think of it as a hobby, with costs, rather than as a way to self-sufficiency.  I am learning a lot and could produce more food to eat, but mostly I'm just experimenting. 

That said, I just pulled my first satsuma off a tree I planted last spring, and it was super tasty.  I would like to have more food coming from my yard as I really like the idea of that.  The execution I sometimes fall short on.  But, does it matter, so long as I'm having fun and not going bankrupt? 

There are still some watermelons out there trying ... we'll see. 

 

putting in some winter crops

This is what I planted today.  I recently realized that while Botanical Interests has very pretty packaging, there's no guarantee things are GMO-free unless labeled that way, so I probably need to shift brands.

I have a 4' x 4' garden bed that a community organization put in for me and then filled with steer manure and put in out-of-season plants.  Um ... thanks?  I've since then amended it with actual soil, let it age, and put in a basil plant and some beans.  Today I planted in the other part of the box some chard and lettuce.  I have some beds that I built that are about 10" high, 3' wide and 6' long.  (My neighbors though I was building coffins!)  I planted three short rows of carrots and then beets the long ways for the rest of it.  In a couple of weeks I'll plant some more carrots in the bed where I put one sweet potato plant and it blew up.  Looks like this.

 Here are watermelon blossoms, other sweet potatoes, and okra.  And one with a bee hidden behind the okra flower - it was shy, but very happy with the blossom. 

I'm seeing lots more bees recently, which is a very good sign.  I'd love to put in a hive myself, but I'm just too close to neighbors and don't know if they're allergic. 

The beans I planted earlier seem to be growing ok, even saw some blossoms on some. 

The sweet potatoes ... hm, when do I harvest them?  i keep using the leaves for cooking and want to extend that out. 

The Bradford watermelon has set some fruit that I put some pine needle mulch under ... we'll see if it works out.  The other watermelon seemed to be doing well but now is showing some mildew or other problem. 

And the okra is just absolutely thriving.  Getting to the point of it growing practically before my eyes.  I love okra!  So good for my gardening self-esteem. 

In planning, I'm hauling loads of horse manure to age ... the problem is it's mixed with woodchips.  So gotta give it enough time. 

Next year I want sweet potatoes all over the front yard -that would be a good place for their sprawliness and beauty.  Maybe by then I will also have put in some tropical vegetation and a rain garden, but I definitely want sweet potatoes and some other thing there that I want in large quantities.  Sunflowers?  Yes, but something else edible. 

update 8.23.15

Information on dividing irises here.

Beans are sprouting well.  We've had lots of rain but they didn't drown.  Something is eating them but they look as though they'll struggle along and be ok, but I'll keep an eye on them.

Okra is producing and I need to gather it every day or it gets woody.

Some of the sweet potato leaves are dying back and I'm not sure what that's about - I'm nowhere near ready to harvest them, but I'd better look at that.

The watermelon are doing fine and I am sure hoping that they produce.

I am solarizing spots in my yard to kill off the weeds and I'll work in aged horse manure and mulch (newspaper and pine needs).  It's still too hot for me to want to work outside in the heat of the day, and school has started and I'm getting busy, but bit by bit I'll stay on top of the garden chores.  

bush beans & update

The okra is producing well and I'm putting it in soup today.  There are one or two plants with lots of ants (right by an ant hill) which I knock off occasionally with a hose, though usually let them be.  There are a few at the other end with some bugs that look like assassin bugs, though they could be juvenile leafcutters. So long as I only see a few it's not a big deal, and I just flick them off to annoy them. 

The watermelon plants are blooming.

The sweet potatoes continue to grow and provide me with lots of greens for soups and such. 

Today I'll plant bush beans - Jade (from Botanical Interests).  I see now that's probably not an ideal type, but I'll give it a go.  I have three mounds that I'll plant them on - one was a tree, one was squash, and one I had prepped for squash but lost interest when they didn't do well.  I'll plant the beans there and also in one garden bed (where I currently have basil and nothing else). 

I'm keeping my deeper garden beds for root crops such as carrots and beets.  I plan to prep a few more rows using the now aged horse manure, to plant other winter crops such as cabbage and broccoli, chard and lettuce. 

I'm holding off on planting any more right now because I'll be out of town a good chunk of September and I'd rather not worry about having somebody water the garden then. 

When it cools off in the next few weeks, I want to get another load of horse manure to let age in order to build beds in the spring for summer crops.  Best to not plant crops in the same place every year, and all my soil needs to amended significantly. 

okra!

Saw the start of an okra flower this morning so went out this evening and there's an okra pod!

Just on one plant so far, but the others are growing fast.  Up to my waist.

Ten weeks to okra.  71 days. 

Sweet potatoes are doing great - I've been harvesting their leaves to eat. That's enough to make me happy even if I weren't going to get sweet potato roots. 

The original watermelon and zucchini just aren't doing anything so I pulled it.  The Bradford watermelon seems to be taking off so that's great. 

update June 30

First baby zucchini showing itself!  Blossoms started a couple days ago, so that's like about six weeks from planting to first signs of zucchini.  Quick!

Sweet potatoes seem to be fine, though the Beauregard that was shipped to me was pretty weak and it was quickly picked off - only two remaining. They seem fine and one has tendrils heading out, so we'll see.

Watermelon and okra are much slower.  Some larger leaves are showing on a couple of okra, but they're still all pretty small. I thought they'd all be further along by now, but maybe they'll pick up speed as the summer heat really rolls in.