Tuesday - Garden - finally fall

I knew fall would come. I just hoped it would wait a few weeks. The clouds and rain are here now though. No more anticipation.

We have had an excellent harvest of string beans, lettuce, chard, crook-neck squash, burpless cucumbers, garlic, shallots, and my Sweetheart's flowers. We gave away 5 medium sized coolers of lettuce in a few weeks - a result of my impatiently scattering the lettuce seed in the early Spring when nothing seemed to be growing.

The tomatoes just did not make it this year. I bought two young plants, got too busy and let them die, then planted them when there seemed to be a spark of life. Later, we planted a hanging tomato - which might have done well except it is on the deck and exposed to the wind and cool night air. Now the hanging tomato is scraggly and the revived tomatoes are gigantic but neither is ripening.

We had a nice pea harvest but I expected much more. The regular peas just did not produce. The snap peas did so I will plant more and earlier in 2007.

I planted 1000 carrots and 250 beets and we have had some of each with a few meals but the planting was designed to be for winter. I read that if we cut the tops off the carrots at 2 inches and cover them (dirt and compost) then they will be good to eat through out the winter. And I read that beets are much sweeter after the first frost.

I have way too much brussel sprouts and will probably never plant them again. I will see what the yield and quality is but they really do take a 30 inch circle. I planted Walla Walla Sweet onions which should be available in November? We have some lettuce that matures in March (yes 2007). Cabbage and broccoli finish the list.

The big project for the year was sifting the carrot garden and preparing potting soil. Carrots do not like pebbles so I used a quarter-inch screen. Then I sifted that through regular screen-door screen to get potting soil base. Adding a little fertilizer (10-10-10) and compost seemed to work. Now, I have 15 gallons of sifted soil (plus what is in the carrot garden) to start 2007 with.

My crowning achievement, I think, is a 3-cubic-yard compost pile (of stacked cinder blocks). It is on a down-hill so I load from the top and empty beautiful black compost from the bottom. Actually, I let a neighbor dump his lawn clippings in the top. He says I save him a lot of money and I get his nitrogen rich grass (yes, he knows it is supposed to go back onto his lawn). The compost pile will provide some of the cover for the carrots. As it finishes decaying it will provide heat to keep the ground from freezing. When the decay is done it will simply be an insulator. To assist the decay process in the compost pile, I use a lance with folding petals at the end. It goes into the pile with the petals folded against the lance. As the lance is pulled, the petals unfold and I get a big air hole to feed those bacteria!!

Well, there are many weeks ahead to report in so I will stop here.

As I work in my garden I think of my beautiful family. Each person is as unique (as are the vegetables) and I miss them.

Lots of Love,
G'pa Bob