Yesterday was a 'work hard in the yard' day. Every so often we need to get control of summer growth .. read weeds .. and take a string trimmer to the landscape. Every muscle aches and yet feels sort of good after the workout. My mind is ever 'expanding' the garden space and making mental notes for next year (which should be written down .. and soon .. lest I forget). The strawberry bed is taking up too much precious ground inside the fenced garden area. I'm hoping to develop a new home for the plants. I have my eye on an area to grow corn that gets long hours of sunlight each day. Soon we should have tomatoes coming out of our ears from the 30 or so plants in our 'square foot garden' area .. it's amazing how tall they can grow if given a chance and a good sturdy trellis. Every year our garden grows a little bit .. and we become better at tending it.
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| I love when the birds 'plant' giant sunflowers :) |
Hopes for next year (read, 'what failed this year;):
- Grow more cucumbers (find out what I'm doing wrong .. only one plant survived)
- Plant twice as many green beans (so I don't have to buy any from the farm to can)
- Add more soil to my deeper raised beds .. the sides cast shadows and cause some areas to have stunted growth
- Plant more peas (read .. enough to freeze once they're shelled as most get eaten while I'm working in the garden)
- Plant onions in the old garden .. they failed miserably in the raised beds
- Amend the raised beds to include a little clay for better water retention .. or mulch heavily with straw
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| A bumper crop of good sized heads of cabbage |
- Green beans
- Tomatoes (crossing fingers)
- Raspberries
- Strawberries
- Greens
- Celery
- Herbs
- Pumpkins & squash (a triumph because we don't have zucchini coming out of our ears;)
- Peppers (still a work in progress)
- Cabbage
- Not a record .. but we have potatoes
- Assortment of flowers to attract bees .. and the chipmunks didn't eat all of the gladiola bulbs :)
5 comments:
Mrs. Mac,
You're a great gardener in the vineyard of our Lord.
Literally and spiritually.
I think he nods smilingly when he receives the daily Mac reports.
You are an inspiration too, you know.
I've better go out in the garden to harvest what's left of the red and black currants, not to mention the sweet gooseberries.
I'm so glad to hear that you had so many successes in the garden this season. Your cabbage looks great.
Our garden did poorly this year and we
don't know why. Guessing too much heat
and too little rain. We did get a lot
of tomatoes, but that's about it. The
green beans, cukes, squash, okra, and
peppers didn't last long at all. Hoping
for a much better year next year.
I love volunteer sunflowers too! Let's see, triumphs: tomatoes, cucumbers, lima beans, crowder peas, summer squash, potatoes, elderberries, okra, basil.
Failures: corn (drought), melons (fairly tasteless & most watermelons got blossom end rot), grapes (critters got even with birdnetting), some apples & berries (critters of various sorts got). Peppers (critters got about half so far). Eggplant few (drought). Tomatillos (all bloom & no fruit), winter squash (squash beetles killed all), lovage (died, but not sure why), parsley (very slow growing, probably drought), pawpaws & figs (critters have gotten half so far)
I really do need to come up and see your garden. I am so sorry that I haven't yet. Glad to hear of all your successes in the garden this year :)
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