Garden Journal #13

First the vegetable update, but then the really exciting news.

Parsnips. Like carrots but white and a stronger flavor. They were gnarly. Could have left them in, but needed to make way for......

THE COMPOST!!! A water bill, a borrowed truck (my dad's), and $20 plus tax bought me 2 cubic yards of the finest compost the City of Fayetteville provides it's citizens. And not knowing that each household is only allowed one scoop, I went back for a second. To give you a sense of how much 2 cubic yards is, my father's Ford F-250 was overflowing with the single scoop. Big thanks to Fillan for helping unload the first scoop and Gayathiri for helping unload the second. If Gayathiri's father knew that she came to the United States only to end up shoveling compost for a gay man I am sure he would reconsider his investment.

Don't you just love the way it crumbles?

Using the crappiest plastic wheelbarrow known to man, much of it ended up in the backyard in the many raised beds. Gentle turning in...not too deep...still leaves a good 8 inches of good soil work with in the spring. After some rain and some settling I filled them even further.

One little problem....some glass pieces in several of the boxes. Oh well..the compost is made from yard waste from citizens and I am sure random bottles end up in their curbside bags. I am still grateful to the City and her citizens who don't compost their crap in their own yard.

Garden Journal #12

Late October (and a mid-November edit)

So October 28th seems late for a garden, right? Especially considering I didn't plant winter squash or pumpkins or brussel sprouts or cabbage or beets. It really should be over with, right? Nope.

As late as just September 3rd the experimental sweet potatoes were shorn off by rabbits. And all the guides say sweet potatoes need a long season, like 120 days at least. I think they went in July 1st and got eaten off twice so they got far less than 120 days of foliage. Well guess what? Booyah! I am totally doing these next year, but the proper way...earlier and way more of them.

That's right...ever-bearing strawberries put on just a handful late in the season.

But the biggest surprise came 19 days later...nearly Thanksgiving folks. What was it?

Wait for it...

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Wait for it...

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A Thanksgiving surprise! When I went to mix in some primo compost (you'll hear about that in a minute) I found the lost little guy.

Garden Journal #11

Mid-October Harvest

These three pictures of radishes do my heart well. The fall radishes were a whim...I realized there was still plenty of heat and there was leftover seed. They went into the ground mid-August (or was it late August?). Anyways, they performed very well. Of course they were bitter and nasty and spicy, but a beautiful nonetheless. I ate the greens though and those were nice and spicy.

One last carrot and one last eggplant.

Remember that huge pepper-fest? One more round had to come off with the first frost.

Garden Journal #10

Edition Peppers! Some known as chilis, chiles, capsicums. Spicy peppers. Red peppers. Everyone seems to call them something different.

Our peppers produced all summer and into the fall. We basically planted one box with a huge assortment and we got a little of everything. Look at the spread we picked last week and then a few examples of each kind:

Anaheim: we only had one plant and it barely produced.

Mystery peppers: we have no idea what they are but they have NO SPICE!

Jalapeños: they just keep coming. They start green and turn red on the bush.

Cayenne: we think....or Mexican chilis....not sure....either way, plenty of spice for dried seasoning, whole or crushed.

Bell: did not produce very well, before they got big they turned dark and had thin flesh.

Bananas: surprising good producers but we had little use for them.

Garden Journal #9

Compost. Homemade. My heaven.

This batch is the first one that truly is what compost is supposed to be. It was a long slow batch sure to be full of seeds, but those can be turned into the soil easily.

That cage was over the strawberries to keep the rabbits out. It worked fine for a screen.

A good barrow full...isn't it beautiful?

The dill and fennel came out of here earlier. Now for the treatment and garlic to be planted later in the fall.

See how much darker and nicer the compost looks?

Mixed well with the existing soil and ready for a late fall planting of garlic.

Garden Journal #8

Late summer in the garden has been a little slow compared to some of the busy weeks in midsummer. I will try to post some pics from back when the produce was really cranking.

Learning: I never would have thought that okra plants would grow 5 feet tall. They started out as the tiniest little things and it took until the heat came on for them to really start growing. They ended up being quite woody and had a very well developed root structure.

Confusion: I have no idea what kind of peppers these are. They have absolutely no heat to them but they don't look like any of the others we grew. It was a mix called "salsa peppers" so who know what they are. Do you know?

Fall Reprise: The idea of a fall garden sounds neat but it terrifies me. I went a head and took a leap of faith and emptied out the packet of radish seeds leftover from the spring. They popped right up and continue to grow. (I was able to use some of my second batch of compost in the soil!)

An Old Enemy Returns: The rabbit(s) that live(s) under the deck previously feasted on the soya beans though we got a good crop out of them. Now the food of choice is a fall batch of Kyle's "granny" bean and my very late experiment of sweet potatoes. I worked in some of the second batch of compost into this late planting.

Fall Surprise: We pulled our onions after heavy rains when the tops started looking really bad. One box had some onions that a friend planted and they never got as big as the others, but they just kept growing. The tops had rotted off and I decided to pull whatever remained. Most small, but a few bulbed out. I was not expecting them at all!

Garden Journal #7

Carrots and soil conditioning

That's the same bunch twice. This is the first harvest of anything that grew in my own compost. The deep soil was good for growth, but these babies were shaded out by huge and leaning asparagus that will actually be harvested next spring.

What do you do when stuff starts coming out and you have nothing to do? Go ahead and condition the soil. This was a little bit of compost that was almost ready.

Half a bag of manure left over from this spring.