Reminders for next spring

 Unless I write things down, I won't remember. There is only a slim chance that writing it down will help, but it's at least done.

Needless to say, this isn't one of my agonize-over-every-phrase, reach for Deep Meaning posts. It's more me, nagging my way through the garden:

Plant more butternut squash. In fact, plant only butternut squash. I don't like any other one much. Even pumpkins are only okay. I'd rather buy them, or at least grow them out front as neighbor-entertainment, but not for eating.

Make a stronger, more permanent staking arrangement for the asparagus. It's been listing since May, and I'm only waiting for its total die back to make a much, much stronger support.

Four Padron pepper plants is, in fact, the perfect amount. Enough to eat,without getting sick of it, and enough to give a bag a week away. They are such nice peppers!

Two jalapeno plants are actually two too many. I'm going to do one or two more pickling runs, and then it's going to be friends and food bank, I think.

In other pepper news, eleven (11!) bell pepper plants is Not Nearly Enough. I don't eat the green ones, since my discovery of the Pizza My Heart variety from Territorial or Renee's or Shepherd's, which are a tasty bell taste, although pointy in shape. Instead, I wait impatiently for them to ripen. But with only a few plants, miserliness rules the day. I eat some, stir-fry some, and roast and freeze the rest. If I doubled my planting, I could gobble and roast and make roasted pepper soup and and and... you get the picture.

 

No more hot peppers. I know why this plant is here. I was filling holes for the garden tour. [Should have put in another bell.] The variety is called "Mura" but I can't find any information on it.Supposed to be very hot. Not at all my style, bu tit would make a cute pepper wreath. Food bank?

  

In fact, no more hot peppers at all. See this innocent hot banana?

They travel in herds:

Time to pickle, I guess.

Late blight, or underwatering, has killed or is killing a lot of back garden tomatoes. I have almost enough put up, but more care would have helped. Actually, not going away on vacation and then having trouble getting back to the garden would help, too.

Stay on top of the weeds. Digging established Bermudagrass out of beds is no fun.

Plant more, many many more, winter veggies in July, rather than.. . oh, three kale plants. They're doing well, though.

More flowers! More flowers make everything lovely. A dedicated, cared-for cutting bed would be nice, too. Cosmos, bachelor's buttons, snapdragons, they all would be welcome. It's difficult to go back to buying cut flowers, but I do love flowers in the house.

Grow more of those Italian pole beans. Take better care of them. Don't grow the bush ones again. Eat those.

Sad, though, in order to grow a lot I'm going to have to forego eating as many as I'd like this year. These big beans are tasty.

In the category Cucumbers, winners, the Persian Baby variety is a clear leader. They would have been enhanced with a constant pairing of hummus, but I didn't always keep it made.

Fortunately, I get a second (third, fourth, fifth?) chance. They're the only variety still standing and producing.
Lemon cucumbers, not again. Even one was too many this year. Two Marketmore were about perfect. They would need to be coaxed into tomato season for Greek salads, though. Or succession planted.

The jury is out on the pickling cucumbers. I definitely like making cornichons better than full-size pickles, although some year I'm going to have to try naturally-fermented full sours. But the cornichons were overwhelming, so I'd probably need to plant many more and harvest in big bunches, then pull the plants when I'm really done. That would also do away with the piddly jars of refrigerator pickles situation.

One pickle was an unqualified success, which alas makes me think I'm going to have to plant a lot more (a LOT more) yellow wax beans. The beans with Meyer lemon and garlic were out of this world. This jar shows only Rattlesnake beans, because we ate the other jars. Sigh.

Another must-do task for next year AND this year is to get on top of the fruit trees. The back yard Blenheim apricot is constantly under attack from aphids, then whiteflies, and even though the ladybugs are trying, they aren't enough. Also, molds and fungus are bothering them. I guess some autumn fungicide is a first step. The apples and plums need something -- starting with consistent composting and watering. Bad gardener, bad gardener!

Things I don't have pictures of but need to do something about? Plant more popcorn. That was great. Consider making a plastic dome for basil. I'm sick of not having success with it. One Early Girl tomato is perfect -- we only use them and Cherokee Purple for salads. No cherry tomatoes in the back yard, and trellis the front one much better. Make a bigger "help yourself" sign for the neighbors. Succession-plant summer squash to avoid them dying of powdery mildew. Water the raspberries more. Prune harder over the summer.

I could get metaphysical and say swim more, take the dogs to the beach more, camp more...but I won't. That's enough for one think.

Cornichon choices and chooks

Yesterday it finally happened! Our February chicks delivered egg number 1, followed by another one today. They are charmingly wee.

For next year, I need to remember that I like Parisian Pickling (the rounder one) and not Cucumber de Bourbonne (pointy, and already pickled in the picture). They both taste like pickles, but I like the shape of the fat little ones. If I don't write it down, I can imagine myself staring at the seed packets thinking, "Now, which one made good pickles?"

New year, new tasks

I used to wonder why so many farming stories included work on irrigation systems. Apparently, they were all true to life, because they require upkeep -- even our tiny backyard system does. Fortunately, I have competent farm help. Eric fixed the two broken places AND extended the one that no longer reached the reduced bed. Taz helped. A lot.

(Apparently a plumber's job list is never done. I hear him plunging the bathroom sink right now. What a great guy.)

Some of the volunteers I don't even remember planting, like this mustardy thing. I don't like these; they're too spicy for me. Maybe the chickens will.

Nasturtiums are easily the most giving and re-giving plant. Although I asked Ellie not to plant them, because they're invasive, she did. . . and I'm pulling them from the pathway already. And yes, I know they're edible. . . just not high on my list of "yummies."

Red Russian kale volunteers big enough to make up a dinner this week. Terrific. They are so much bigger than the lettuce I actually seeded at about the same time. Just goes to show that when they get to do their own thing, in my yard at least, they're generally very happy.

Cilantro Pathway furnished enough for a pot of Red Lentil and Lime soup this afternoon. Again, when I keep my hands off, things seem to go really well.

Sarafina even put in some time giving the asparagus a haircut. There were already some spear-like shoots. Hopefully this will tell it that it's winter and it should think about a spring resurgence.

Another sign of the times is my children risking their life and limbs to get the Christmas tree in the green bin. I think this picture is after it served as a sled down the front steps a number of times.

All that's left for this week is to draw the garden plan, taking into account where the already-sprouting seedlings will go, and then plant the rest. Fun times.

Dealing with sprawl

 One of the things I'm vowing to do differently next year is deal with the tomatoes in a neater, more contained way. I've done the 6x6" wire fencing approach, and that works okay. I tried to stake them this year, and that apparently takes much more effort than I put in. I don't know which approach I'll use next year -- maybe a combination, depending on the type of tomato and whether I mean to pick them a bunch at a time (like paste tomatoes) or singly (like slicing).

No matter which support system I choose, it's going to succeed or not depending on how much effort I put into it, I suspect. Things like proper spacing, clipping blighted leaves, and nipping back overwhelming growth for better air circulation actually count if healthy tomatoes with a neater aspect are desired.

I do know I won't allow any volunteers next year, as they turned out to be mostly uninspired cherry tomatoes. I'm not certain I'll grow cherries, at all. Sungolds are nice, but a little goes a long way, for me. I'm really a cooked tomato kind of gal, caprese salad notwithstanding.

As I was searching for those links, I was surprised to see that I'd put these tomatoes out in April. Can it really be that we have over seven months of tomato growth? Wild. I do grow, however, heartily sick of them, especially when they look as neglected as mine did.

So yesterday was the last day for tomatoes. Ellie and I pulled all the vines (she pulled when my elbow began complaining) and picked through the plants for any leftover tomatoes.

There were a lot:

They got divided into three piles: green, to go to my friend Vera to make into pickles (we ate this year's jar at Thanksgiving and maybe I ate a lot last night while I was doing dishes); a pile of red-maybe-will-ripen-on-the-window for sauce; and a pile of "yuck!" for the chickens.



This guy made me yell out loud, but the chickens will appreciate a tasty snack.

How I do when I do what I do

Various garden bloggers are posting beautiful images of their high-tech garden plans made with sophisticated software. Ribbit and I seem to fall on the other end of the spectrum. To be honest, I stink at record-keeping (hence the blog) and I also stink at planting things where I say I will. It's as though the heady scent of topsoil goes straight to my head and whoosh -- I'm high as a kite, sticking transplants and seeds into garden beds willy-nilly, trusting in whatever earth deities run the vegetable world to make it all work out okay. They don't always watch, so I have "Tom Thumb" lettuce marching right through my napkin-glued carrots, but it usually works out okay.

The thing is, though, I love plans. I love planning, I love imagining me remembering to succession-plant, I think crop rotation is a fine, fine thing, and I like paper. How does that work out? Well, on the days when I don't have a whole class and a half's worth of papers to grade (what's your thesis statement for "The Overcoat"?), and I don't feel like doing battle with the Bad, Bad Weeds, I go downstairs and get my secret stash of optimism:


Doesn't look like much, huh? Well, lookie here:


That's, roughly speaking, my yard. Sorry it's difficult to see. All the beds are laid out and the major fruit trees depicted. They're just outlines. To fill them in, I go to the tracing paper and drafting tape:


This is the current planting. In general, I try to put dates down but I'm not completely on top of that. The little stakes in the garden have plant dates, transplant dates, and pull dates (ideally) written on them. Sharpie fades; pencil doesn't. Go figure.

Then I make another tracing paper copy for the next season. This is for the spring.


Laid over the current planting, I can see what is in the beds to be followed. Heavy feeders follow light, and vice versa. Tomatoes and cole crops seem to be the key players -- I want to be sure they don't get planted right where they were.


Theoretically, this will work. At our house, computers sometimes die or fail, but if I don't forget where the tube is, this sort of system should last and last. I like peeling the layers off, traveling in time as I see the progression of crops. If planting follows the plan, everything should work out just fine. It does, for me at least, lead to thinking of single-crop beds. We'll see. My desires for different vegetables seems to be waning, while I want more of single things (there is, for example, no such thing as "too much" butternut squash).

Plus, there's the magic of an eraser. The way my eldest is eating pickles lately, I may remove a potato bed and put in more pickling cucumbers. Easier done on paper than outside!

What was I thinking?

We were out of town last weekend (here), and what a difference a few days make. For one thing, our chicken sitter gave the girls their first night not locked in their coop; happily they didn’t have any visitors.

Also, the garden grew. A lot.

One of my planting challenges has always been leaving too much space between seeds/seedlings, making for a sparse-feeling garden. I was determined not to do that this year, and boy howdy, I didn’t.

The back plot, planted with corn, squash, beans, and cucumbers, is in a tangle. I can’t tell where one squash ends and another begins; some intrepid plants are climbing right up the apricot tree and the corn, elbowing the pole beans out of the way.

That squash is about 4 feet off the ground, climbing the corn and anything else it can get its tendrils around.

The lemon cucs are making a valiant stand against the zucchini.

I planted three zucchini plants (I know, I know---stop laughing), two butternut, and a few Lakota and Delicata. Now, amusingly enough, I can’t tell which of the latter I'm seeing everywhere. I have a bunch of these, and I’m thinking Lakota:

Meanwhile, the walkway is now a vine-tangled “walkway,” with the vines reaching for the chicken coop. I just hope the chickens don’t sit still too long, otherwise the squash constrictors might get them.

We’re toying with the idea of training the vines onto the roof of the coop, where they can reach the neighbors’ bamboo. From there I guess the sky's the limit.

The squash isn’t the only thing overgrowing its bounds. Here’s a shot of the pathway between the garden beds.

The tomato plants are so tall and so dense, I can crawl in among them and disappear. The scent of tomato foliage is one of my all-time favorites, though, so I could be pretty happy in there.

And behind them, the sunflowers are having to reach pretty high.


The fruit on one of the potted bush Early Girls has this wrinkled patch that’s beginning to brown:


The vines are so heavy with fruit, though, that if even half of it ripens healthily, we’ll have a bumper crop. We’re keeping our fingers crossed.

We harvested most of the True Siberian kale, much of which had bolted while we were away, and finally had to admit that the edamame were done. They came to this:

And lastly, another gift from the ground:

The last flush was inadvertently trampled by little feet harvesting plums---who could resist?---

so we’re pretty tickled to see these.

As to what's going to become of the tangle that is the garden, we'll just have to practice patience. And maybe get a machete.