We now interrupt your regularly scheduled update on the house to give you this update on the garden. This year, I knew that my garden would have to be smaller and less tended than last year; since I'm trying to get most of my home updates done in the first year, there's just not that much time left over. That's sometimes hard for me, because I miss the joy of working in the dirt, and I'll definitely harvest fewer vegetables than last year. Hopefully I can make up for it next year.
I can't fit the entire garden in one picture, but this about two-thirds of it. That bare patch is where I planted leeks and fennel, twice. Both times I got nothing but dirt. I also planted basil three times, from two different sets of seeds, but nothing came up. This is the first time in my garden career that I've planted viable seeds and just had entire crops fail to even sprout.
The pole beans are starting to work their way up the teepees. Pole beans are long green beans, and they produce more than the bush green beans than most people grow, so I think they are worth the effort. And standing on a stepladder in the middle of the yard and pounding in eight foot stakes with a rubber mallet above your head is some effort, let me tell you. I dropped the mallet on my head twice, and had the bruise to show for it.
Some of the gardens I inherited are out of control with years-old weeds. After consulting with my mother, I'm solarizing (a fancy way to say "using the sun to kill everything alive") the beds. I covered the ground with sheets of plastic, and in a few weeks or months, I'll pull it up and try planting again.
Happily, the watermelons are a success again this year. I train them up a trellis, making little hammocks to support the fruits.
6 comments:
Did you have the soil tested in that area where nothing will grow?
Do you have mice in the garden? They specialise in eating the seeds you have put in the ground. Next year, try starting the seeds off in pots, then plant them out when they have germinated.
PS - We covered a patch of grass in blue plastic and when we removed the plastic, the grass underneath was doing better than the grass that we had not covered. We had to use heavy duty black plastic so that no light could get through, then we had more success. Perhaps it is the higher temperatures that you have that will finish off the weeds.
de-I - that's a good thought. I haven't had the soil tested, but it's right in the middle of a bed, and all that soil was new, mixed with compost and part of the truckload I had brought in. I will try growing something else there this fall. It seems weird if just one little portion of the new dirt was contaminated somehow.
I love your gardening posts. More more more. Having just purchased a property with virtually no outdoor space, I find myself vicariously gardening through you. I love the little melon hammocks, HOW SUPER CUTE!
If there were an AirBNB for melons, I'm sure that picture with hammocks would be bringing in the reservations.
I also love the hammock idea. And I am always amazed at how much time and effort you put into gardening.
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