Author: FarmingMum

Nice to cultivate once in a while

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This morning while T was at a birthday party with his dad, I managed to quickly hoe the pumpkins and around the pole beans. Then I went on to the sunflowers. I hoed out the big weeds from the northern side and then moved on to the south. The weeds were way too big for hoeing. I pulled out a lot of pigweed, lambsquarters, and (deadly?) nightshade. I mostly left the bindweed. Found one goathead plant and one of the nasty spiny weed I had seen in the north bed last month. My hands are stained from humus! Could I clear out the bindweed and undersow clover?

some weeds have been pulled, but many others, including a pigweed, are determined to try to stay in the ground.
A view of the south end of the south sunflowers while I was weeding. The sunflowers are from a mixed pack, so some are tall and some are short.

This evening I pulled some weeds here and there (nightshade bed) and then picked a basket of the old strawberries. I pulled out a bunch of bad ones and leaves and managed to go around 5 of my six rows of berries and pick up the debris from the ground! Yay for sanitation.

I checked my notes about the pole beans, and it looks like I’ve only done 2 plantings. (I just wanted to check). The scarlet runner beans look pretty good (the first planting’s new growth is very yellow), so I should get going on planting the next thing!

I’ve been searching frantically for my big packet of Kakai pumpkin seed and I just do not know where it could be (unless it’s in the pile of magazines here at the desk). It’s getting to be the last minute for planting. I can’t even remember which bed I put pumpkin seeds in the other night, or if I made it all the way to the end of the row.

I’m eyeing a bed for a 1st planting of peas. It’s the one next to the pole beans. Trying to get the crops more into “blocks” for ease of crop planning.

I killed 2 different kinds of plant bugs tonight. Weird. I think one was a stink bug, and the other, I’m not sure. Lygus? Nah.

Those pesky raccoons dug up my compost yesterday. I need a worm bin for once it gets to this point. I need something to cover up my finishing piles, anyhow, so a bin would be great…

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From Friday- hey, you’re supposed to be broccoli!

 

 

Can’t wait for Monday!

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On Monday my kid’s school starts back up after a vacation. Hopefully I can get back into my morning-in-the-garden ritual and even turn it into 2 hours in the garden. (The trick is to eat breakfast and clean up before the kid goes to school).

My sister-in-law picked tons of strawberries and blackberries this week! Our freezer is even more stuffed full of berries than it was before! I checked today or yesterday and noticed that there are very, very few flowers. Am I going to keep watering those berries in hopes of a future harvest? Last year it was great to have berries the week of Thanksgiving. Do these plants produce like that in their 2nd year, as well as their first?

Last night (?) and tonight I planted more pumpkins- this time, in the middle of the south side. I’m noticing that a lot of the soybeans I planted are lying on the surface, like the soil pushed them out 😦 A good amount of soil got scraped off by the tractor and it’s in a big pile that, from a distance, looks like it is only straw. There were 10 gopher mounds in one of the beds were I put pumpkins. And that’s before I even started planting!

The good news:

there are still a few Chandler (spring) strawberries, and they are really yummy! I managed to pick a combined basket of them and summer berries this evening. I got out later and picked 1/4 of a gallon of blackberries.

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The next crop of Trilogy green bush beans is coming on. I’ve seen some rather large yellow ones. The Scarlet Runner beans have sprouted (is it too late in the season for them?).

There are broccoli and cabbages to pick.

Some not-so-good news:

To research: some branches came off of one of my tomato plants. This one was still sort of hanging on when I found it on Wednesday.

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dried out and cracked tomato branch.

The raccoons continue to wreak havoc all over the garden – digging up beans, pumpkin seeds, and more. They are probably knocking over the corn plants, too.

I lost 2 more broccoli plants on Wednesday! I’ve noticed that a bunch of the old green bean plants have gone missing. I should probably pull the rest of them out. Z wants to save seed from them (I am imagining that they are hybrids, though).

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signs of gopher (and snake?) activity very close to a bare patch where there used to be bush bean plants

There are so many weeds out there. Some of the beds are literally carpeted in lambsquarter, pigweed, and purslane. I need to be putting compost out to cover that soil! And I need to hoe!!! When can I??

 

Planted some late pumpkins

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calendula in flower

I planted about 3/4 of a bed of pumpkins in the middle of the south side of the field this evening.

Earlier today I fertilized with my liquid mineral fertilizer till I ran out, and then with the seaweed one.

My garden time has been weird this week because we have houseguests (tomorrow’s our last day with them, and my inlaws are coming up to be with us all). My sister-in-law has been rocking the harvests- today she got around a gallon of blackberries! Our freezer is so full. We really need to get a standalone freezer! I also need a new dehydrator.

I did some more research on where to get compost today. The place that our local green waste goes to (in the next county) has an omri-approved product, and in the quantity I’d want there’s a discount that puts it lower than Sonoma Compost (which is local but not currently organic-approved afaik). the delivery fee for the place in Marin County was $240, which would apply if we got 20 or 40 yards’ (yards’s?) worth. We have had an expensive year…

Vistors and mega-harvest

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Nearly 3 gallons of strawberries!
Everyone was happy about how many strawberries we have!
A bunch of us in the strawberries. I am in the dark green at the back, T is in the blue hat, and Z is in front of the left. This really shows how close the tomatoes, peppers, and eggplants are to the strawberries.
A bunch of us looking at the summer strawberries. photo by my father-in-law

Today was the day when we had my sister-in-law, her kids, my in-laws, their best friends, and the friends’ son and daughter-in-law and their kid over. The husband from the 2nd couple is an avid gardener, and the next generation is into it a bit, too. Tons of strawberries came out of the garden! Tons and tons! And at least 3 baskets of blackberries made their way to the house and people’s cars. We went for a nice walk out back and there are a lot of blackberries out there.

I’m starting to get serious about my need for a food dehydrator. My sister-in-law is trying to make some fruit leather in the oven (with it off, I think). It’s just so humid in our house… although it is still 80 degrees in here!

I pulled a broccoli the rest of the way out of the ground today. It was starting to wilt, but I’m not sure if it’s because it didn’t have a lot of roots, or because the roots were eaten by a gopher. A lot of the plants were too tall when they went in, and they grew a bit sideways before they straightened out. This might make them more vulnerable to just getting pulled out of the ground because of their weight (?).

blurry photo I snapped this evening - it shows that there are still ripe strawberries on the west side of the bed
There are still plenty of strawberries out there

 

Busy, busy!

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I haven’t been getting as much time in the garden lately because Z has been having to work an “honest” day (finishing later) and T has been clingy. In the last few days, I’ve started a new compost pile, put out 6 wagon loads of compost (in the paths between the gourd/pumpkin rows, need about 10 more loads), seeded more corn and green beans, picked some strawberries, worried about all the stuff I’m not getting done, and- tonight – picked ~1/4 gallon of blackberries. I also froze about that much from when I picked earlier in the week. We have lost 4 or 5 broccoli plants in the last 2 days or so. 4 for sure. I picked some broccoli earlier tonight. Oh, tonight, especially in the Chandlers, I found a lot of… limbs? of the strawberry plants that died. And a few in the summer berries. I think this might be a disease in the soil. Need to look this up again.

T’s school is on vacation, so we were out of the house all day today. There will be guests starting on Sunday, so there’s a lot of housecleaning to worry about and if I’m lucky  maybe we can clean up some of the blackberry plants that are growing just inside the garden gate. I also need to do a lot of cleanup work on the old strawberries.

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winter squash/pumpkin beds (center). note compost at the far end. note missing broccoli plants on right.
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sad dead broccoli plants. compost in peace!

1st cherry tomato!

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This evening I found an Indigo something cherry tomato! It came off in my hand and T tried to eat it. Most of it was purple, but you can see some green at the bottom. It was pretty hard and not flavorful. Exciting, though!

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Z did a bunch more tractor work this morning, trying to rake the beds smoother. Unfortunately they look like they have “checks” for flood irrigation, since the landscape rake pushed all the debris and clods up into what should be the paths. Boo for erosion and still not being finished. Also, he didn’t add any compost… Anyhow, he set out sprinklers and drip lines for 2 beds so hopefully we can seed some cover crops tomorrow. And hopefully he gets out there in the morning to try to fix those beds.

I planted a packet of the same purple pole beans as last year, and tried putting some summer squash seeds on the other side of the drip tape. I realized most of the way thru that this will not work, because the squashes would grow right up into the trellis. Have to put the beans on the other side so there’s room for the squash to be squash. Doh! Will have to do that for upcoming plantings.

I picked strawberries, but I only brought in one basket. T ate tons of them! Later on he was mad that he didn’t get to plant seeds with me, but he had been too busy playing with irrigation stuff to help. That’s fine.

There didn’t seem to be a lot of green beans today, but I picked 2/3 of a basket of bell beans. I saw a bad bug (squash bug, or that weird elder bug thingie?) on the bell beans, so I should probably get those out of my strawberry bed. Ugh, the summer plants’ leaves are just covered in dust :(.

 

Blackberry harvest has begun!

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Himalayan blackberries

Today while we were walking past the Himalayan blackberries along the driveway (with a septic guy), I checked to see if there were ripe berries. Just in time, since there are tons of ripe berries! I went out and picked maybe a basket’s worth or so with T. He ate and ate and ate them! I hadn’t realized that they were that far along. They are delicious. My inlaws had made it sound like they’d only gotten a half a basket on Tuesday. Now there are a lot more than that, and the photo shows a small portion of the closest patch to the house.

Sad broccoli plants. Bad gophers!
Broccoli plants damaged by gophers.

The wildlife is really starting to impact the garden- 4 broccolis have been affected by gophers in the last 2 days. One or two are still holding on, if sideways. I put the others into the compost. To work on for the future: bigger heads.

Small hole where animals dug into the soil to eat pumpkin seeds, eat bugs, or find out what the fish smell was from (fertilizer)
Spot where raccoons or skunks dug up pumpkin seeds

The raccoons dug up approximately 5 of the 8 little “mounds” where I planted pumpkin seeds the other night. Boo. 😦 Fortunately I have another packet. Z thinks I should wait another few days to replant, since the animals tend to dig on more than one night. Possible reasons for the digging: use of fish/kelp meal right as I was planting (so it wasn’t watered in for a period of time before I planted), and use of compost on the surface. There’s another gopher mound along where I planted the pole beans the other night. May need to replant that section.

Z got so much done today! He chiseled 11 beds (8 pictured) and then after I took this picture he got them most of the way raked. I am not happy about the “dust” that was blowing around. He was working while it was too windy. And yes, the soil was too dry.

Today I harvested: blackberries, kale, broccoli, basil, purslane, strawberries (ate in the field), and beans (three huge handfuls). T was excited to carry two of those handfuls of beans into the house! They sure get big quickly.

Z has an interesting idea: we could grow a bunch of things that local plant breeder Luther Burbank grew. Maybe some spineless cactus, Shasta daisies (need those for the strawberries!!), etc.

Friends came to visit!

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Yay, some friends stopped by on their way from Oakland to Oregon. We had lots of delicious strawberries available in the “old” patch, and they loved them!!!

I hoed the sunflowers some more today, and hoed near the pole bean bed (planted a packet last night). I think there’s a new gopher mound right next to the drip tape in the area I planted :(.

Red Noodle pole beans, iirc
how many of my seeds did the gophers dig up?
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Broccoli

Today was not a good newer-strawberry harvest day. It’s been hot lately, and the summer berries have been focused on putting out runners for far too long. The Sweet Anns aren’t very tasty. Hoping to fertilize soon.

Tonight I transplanted some of the tray of organic Walla Walla onions that I got from a local seed/seedling company last weekend into the greens beds. The dill looks great! There are some zinnias coming up here and there.

I picked a basket of green/purple/yellow (“Trilogy”) green beans tonight. I focused on picking the biggest ones- I haven’t done a thorough picking since the night I got the big bag of them. I think they are starting to slow down after only a week of production.

I haven’t been keeping track of Days to Maturity of various varieties of things that I’m planting from seed in multiple areas (corn, beans, sunflowers). Hope that doesn’t bite me in the butt come harvest time with a bunch of weird hybrids.

Another construction project to do

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Need to add “outdoor shower” to the list of things to build. This will be complicated since the greywater leachfield could be the backyard (or compost?), but it’s uphill. Plus it should be plumbed to the septic in case we ever go for organic or certified naturally-grown, right?