Mid-August
Category: In the garden
Sowing for Fall Harvest
Today, I harvested a ton of tomatoes. Sadly, many of them had split because of the recent heavy rains. I also started my fall sowing: one row of Golden beets, one row of Chioggia beets and one row of Scarlet Nantes carrots. Towards the end of the month, I will start fall greens.
July Update
Over the past couple of weeks, I have been harvesting a lot of zucchini, kale, herbs and flowers. I even donated two zucchini to our new donation basket, which we attached outside the garden gate. Today, I harvested the first two cucumbers, which I intend to pickle. My tomatoes are all still green, and sadly, the bunnies keep eating the baby winter squash :(. The basil is thriving, I might make the first batches of pesto very soon. Everything is doing well, we have had a long heat wave and a few crazy thunderstorms, so the gardens are lush.
Garden Plot Clean-Up
This morning, I spent a couple of hours weeding my plot and spreading salt marsh hay that I had left over from weeding the outside garden bed and fertilizing and mulching it earlier this morning. The outside bed is now pretty much all set until the fall, when I am hoping to get spring bulbs in the ground. I mulched that bed heavily, hoping to suppress the weeds. Fingers crossed.
My plot is now ready for summer. The zucchini are coming in, the first tomatoes are showing up on the vine, the leeks have recovered, the winter squash is spreading, and the garlic is almost ready for harvest.
Communal Garden Bed Progress
It has been about a month since we started planting the new communal garden bed outside of our community garden. The area was cleared in early May, the Southwest Corridor Park crew built the garden bed border, and we spread compost. Planting for this season is now pretty much completed. We mulched the left side of the bed (native perennials) and the blueberry bush (very accessible on the very right of the bed close to the path) with bark mulch and will now mulch the rest of the bed with hay. We fertilized once and will fertilize a second time in the next few days. The plants are coming along nicely, even though we had to relinquish some plants (mainly kale, but also Zinnias, marigolds and other flowers) to the resident rabbits.
Red Currants
The red currants are ready, so I harvested around 4 cups this morning. Cleaned them (which despite using the speedy fork method seemed to take forever) and froze 3 cups in a Ziploc bag to be turned into red currant crumb bars later. None of my kids are in town at the moment, so I will make the crumb bars later this summer. I will enjoy the remaining currants macerated over yogurt or ice cream, or eat them fresh.
There are still tons of currants waiting to be harvested. I will harvest and freeze more in the next few days.
Midsummer Plot
Today, I spent three hours weeding my plot. Way overdue. I kind of had neglected my plot a bit in the past few weeks as I was more focused on the communal bed outside of the garden. It was a cool (70F) and overcast day, a welcome break between the heatwave that ended yesterday and the upper 80s predicted for the next coming days. Perfect weeding weather. Things are coming along nicely with the hot weather and now with a few days of showers and thunderstorms. I had fertilized the tomatoes with banana peel water last week, and they seem to have doubled in height since.
Planting the Outside Bed
Yesterday, my daughter and I spent two hours planting the mixed communal flower and vegetable bed outside our community garden. The Park took out some old overgrown diseased shrubs three weeks ago, built a cobble stone border and added a layer of compost. Now it was (is) up to us to fill the bed and take care of it. Our vision is to create a bed for the community that is both beautiful and useful, so we are planning a combination of flowers, herbs, vegetables and fruit.
Towards the left, where it only gets morning sun, we planted native perennials (New York Aster, Sweet Goldenrod, Lance-Leaved Coreopsis, Eastern Bluestar), and creeping thyme. In the center, we added Swiss chard, planted squash against the fence and sowed sunflowers directly behind the shed.
In the right section, close to the border, within reach for passers-by are small-fruiting and cherry tomatoes and a blueberry bush. Plus Black-Eyed Susan, marigold, lavender and annual asters, as well as daylilies against the fence.
There is still a lot of space for other plants, and the bed will be filled over the next couple of weeks with dahlias, other flowers, strawberries (hopefully) and more squash and other vegetables and herbs.
Planting My Plot
Yesterday, I finally had time to plant my plot, after I planted the new flower bed outside our community garden. I put in calendula, kale, Swiss chard, leeks, two each Delicata and Butternut squash, tomatoes (11 plants total, which is way more than I need but, as always, I could not control myself), Italian basil, pinwheel marigolds, one cucamelon, three Tokiwa cucumbers (none of my pickling cucumbers germinated), Thai basil and zucchini as well as dahlia tubers and Zinnia seedlings in the back towards the fence. I also rabbit-proofed the kale and chard with chicken wire and came back this morning to rabbit-proof the flower seedlings in the back. Not taking chances with my dahlias and Zinnias.
All that is left for now is to sow some flower seeds, beets and perhaps some slow-bolt cilantro. And stake the tomatoes, of course. But I still have space for more seedlings. Hmm …
Planting tally for the day: 6.5 hours of planting.162 plants (some for the communal bed, some for my own plot)