some of the dino kale and dwarf green kale that I picked today
Today I harvested 3 cabbages, 3 kinds of kale kale (the kale is starting to bolt), dill, 3 kinds of basil, broccoli (including the kind of tight heads that one finds at the store) and broccoli greens, nearly 4 baskets of strawberries, a handful of Sungold cherry tomatoes, and a handful of onion greens. I picked 3 carrots to see what they were like- tiny and without roots. One was rotten halfway up the carrot. Too much water and too many gophers? Soil disease? Time will (or may) tell.
For dinner Z made pasta with sausages and pesto with our basil and a salad with cabbage, the neighbors’ lemon cucumbers, our dill, onion, garbanzo beans (gotta have ’em), and lemon juice.
My father-in-law picked a basket or two of blackberries, and my mother-in-law picked like 4 baskets of the old strawberries (how did she find that many?).
We still have not decided on a farm name. Kind of need one, depending on how I’d announce its existence/what’s available. What if we brought in like $50 a week? How would I even have time to interact with customers, nevermind pick stuff for them?
I picture me listing us on localharvest.org and saying “inquire about availability” and”by appointment,” but really all I need is a sign on the fence. Tho the website would help find foodies who might be able to pay a fair price. SIGH!
Name-wise, something related to our location would make sense, but then again, it’s a common street name. Maybe something about being on the urban edge… Here’s an article I don’t have time to read about Farming on the Urban Fringe On this subject, I just want to say that a really nice acre on the street near us that goes from the fringe into the city was getting dug up by heavy machinery last week. 😦 I sure hope they’re putting in affordable housing!
I texted my neighbor (on the garden side) the other day to tell him we have veggies to share, and didn’t hear back. I persisted because the fridge was so full- tonight I said “and strawberries.” That got him out to the fence! I gave him the half-basket I’d picked, the oldest one from the fridge, 2 cabbages, and a half a bag of green, yellow, and purple beans. T helped carry one of the cabbages, and the neighbor’s kid carried that one to their residence.
I also called the neighbors on the other side of us and they said they are drowning in green beans and cabbages, but would try to help out by taking some stuff and bringing lemon cucumbers. I think lemon cucumbers in northern California are a bit like zucchini everywhere- once they come on, there are too many. Speaking of which, I didn’t pick green beans last night and there were a lot that were too big. I put most of them into the compost.
I made a call about delivery of compost from the company that I and many other local sustainable growers am/are loyal to, and found that I could save $40 on delivery of 20 yards, or spend $60 less to get 40 yards from the other company I’ve been looking at. When I put it that way, I guess I should just get 20 yards delivered! For some reason, both are located in Marin County (atm) and neither is in Sonoma County. But it’s from farther away (as they lost their site last year, muy complicado), and they are only CDFA organic rather than OMRI-approved (they are on a new site this year). It’s not clear to me if this “organic” designation actually means anything.
This morning I harvested 5 cabbage heads and 4 or 5 bunches’ worth of kale. This evening I picked 2 baskets of strawberries and 3/4 of a gallon of green beans. And basil. And, later, Maybe 1/4 of a gallon of blackberries. My in-laws picked 4 baskets of old strawberries. (They are almost finished for now. I do not know why the plants at the edge are dying. Z did take out the middle drip line this week, but that shouldn’t affect the edge like this!
dying strawberry plants on left. Note gopher damage on right
I didn’t take any pictures of the huge harvest, but I sent most of it to a friend in Berkeley! she said the ones I sent were the best strawberries she’d ever tasted.
I spent midday taking the leaves that were damaged by leafminers off of the chard plants.
volunteer dino kale in pumpkin bed
I am officially declaring our cover crops failed. I think the problem is the old posts and tubes on the sprinklers. Maybe the removal of the topsoil due to the tractor is also to blame. Note pile of soil and straw at back left:
broccoli that got a bit ahead of me and will flower by Monday, I’d guess
Ack, I missed the broccoli this week (the 3rd harvest). I found some bigger heads than I usually see. Also some nasty diseased heads (possibly cauliflower?) in a different part of the bed. The dill is looking great :). Sadly, I never got around to planting anymore brassicas. Oh, if I don’t pick the cabbage tomorrow morning, I’ll be screwed!
Harvest also included 2+ baskets of strawberries and 2/3 of a gallon of Trilogy beans (green, yellow, and purple). I only picked one side of the bed. Oh, and this morning I picked a small tupperware’s worth (a pint?) of blackberries- that’s all I had time for!
I’ve been working hard on trying to catch up with the weeds in the newer pumpkin and pinto bean beds. That’s coming along. We have lost 1 or 2 more potato plants (as of yesterday afternoon) and I haven’t had a chance to dig and check for ‘tates.
Nasturtiums at the head of the broccoli bed. 1 is from T’s school. Dill and lots of weeds are also visible.
One is from T’s school, I think (depends on which germinated or if he actually had put a seed into the pot!).
In the mornings I’ve been doing some hoeing/weed work and moving about 3 wagon loads per day of compost to a wide spot between rows on the south side. Wish I could get this done faster. I am wondering if some of the weeds from the bean or pumpkin bed are spiny clotbur. One of my friends only sees pigweed.
The weed I’m wondering about is in the bottom left corner- the dark one. I mostly see bindweed, and some purslane and larger pigweed. But those long, narrow leaves have me worried.
I cut down a big portion of the huge borage, since it had fallen on so many strawberry plants. Now I need to chop a lot of another one.
This morning I found a potato plant that had no roots (meaning that the gophers have found the potato bed). I couldn’t find any potatoes down below where the plant had been. 😦
The aboveground portion of a potato plant that has been eaten by gophers
I’m getting confused looking at my local gardening book and trying to figure out if i can still plant certain things. I put in a packet of long (pole) beans today, and planted some pinto beans in with the kakai pumpkins and gourds.
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?
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…
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.
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.
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).
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??
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…
Everyone was happy about how many strawberries we have!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 (?).
farmingmum 