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. 

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.