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Gardening for the busy, max your garden fast.
This gallery contains 5 photos.
It’s been a great summer for gardening, and I wish I had kept up on the 30 minutes/day challenge, but we still have been eating well from the garden and will continue to do so. The bush beans (providor) and the snow peas (oregon giant) have had their day, at least for the plantings in the individual garden beds and have been cut down. The bush beans in what will be the strawberry pyramid are going strong, though – giving an additional 1.2 lbs (0.544 kg) of beans all at once from the eighteen plants. A second harvest, and possibly a third should be in the future, as there are no pests and few weeds. It was easy pickings, too! Walked around the bed and picked, stooping only slightly for the lower tier. May experiment with more pyramids next year. Bush Beans totals are: Lasagna bed produced 31.25 oz (), followed by the Box Bed at 13.88 oz (),...
Managed to trip and land on one of my squash plants in the Hugelkultur bed, attempting to get at some of the tomatoes that have been almost completely covered by the amazingly large leaves of the patty pan. Also bent the daylights out of the tomato cage (why just destroy one thing?). We’re practically swimming in patty pan squash, which have been going to neighbors, friends, new teachers… kind of reminds you of zucchini dilemmas? I’ve got three taste tested recipes that are great for patty pan squash, as well as any other summer squash: Stuffed Patty Pan Squash Patty Pan Squash and Couscous Sauteed Patty Pan Squash with Fresh Basil and Goat Cheese Beyond that, the Hugelkultur bed is now producing cucumbers, the box bed is forming it’s first patty pan squash, the wicking bed is now beginning to produce beans. One day this week (probably tomorrow, as it will...
Took a week away last week, and it seems technology took a holiday as well in many forms. First I lost (then later found) my flash drive. Then my MP3 player decided it had enough (Sansa Clip that was working great – even after being run over several months ago, just couldn’t take the rain with it’s cracked case, having fallen from my pocket while relaxing in an Adirondack chair). If that wasn’t bad enough, I had a neighbor set up to track the progress of the beds, only to have the scale (analog scale – no batteries or electronics!) go haywire! They did their best, and I’ve just picked up where I left off recording what I have picked. As you can see for 2011-08-08, the lasagna garden bed continues to do great, with the hugelkultur bed starting to perk up quite a bit, the pattypan squash really spiking the numbers. Got our first broccoli as well, and...
A couple of more pattypan squash have pushed the lasagna bed even further ahead, at almost 2.5 pounds (1.13kg) total yield from this gardening technique. I remember over fourty years ago getting ready for “the coming of the metric system”. Now, thankfully – we’re seeing it replacing the imperial system with popular foods measured in whole metric amounts (2 litres of beverage, 1 litre of cooking oil, etc.), glad I had those lessons, wish I remembered them – but I digress. Patty pan squash, aka pattypan, cibleme, scallopini, button squash, and others (see wikipedia for details), is similar in texture and flavor to zucchini squash. They are often picked when they are no more than three inches in diameter (76mm). At this stage, the seeds are immature enough tthat they are similar in texture to the rest of the squash and are cooked and eaten with no difficulty. When grown beyond three inches, the seeds become tougher, the insides start to become...
After a weekend away, the lasagna bed pulled ahead in the race for the most produce, with the hugelkultur bed surpassing the box bed by a little less than an ounce. Bringing up the rear is the leaky wicking bed. Putting the soaker hose on trickle for the wicking bed hoping that it will begin to produce in earnest and at least come in line with the lasagna bed and the other beds. There is evidence of the rabbit I’d seen tasting our green beans, nibbling 1/2 a bean and leaving the rest. The potato plants are starting to turn, meaning that in a couple of weeks it will be time to harvest – they have already cut them back in Deerfield, MA* which is usually two weeks ahead of Goshen, MA. The carrots have begun to emerge in the insulated container garden, and I will have to hook up either some shade cloth or something shiny to scare away...
It appears there is a leak in the plastic under the wicking bed. Within hours of filling it (twice), the reservoir is empty. The potatoes at the end appear to be missing the water, too – they are turning yellow and wilting. Fortunately, I have some extra soaker hoses that I just placed there, and much of the “extra” water will be absorbed by the now rotting wood chips that were the medium above the plastic that was there to “break up the surface tension and help facilitate wicking”. The box beds are starting to catch up to the lasagna beds as far as yield is concerned, with the wicking bed taking a break to flower like mad and the hugelkultur bed following suit, though there was the one patty pan squash that was ready for a salad, and thus picked. I am hearing the water pump working away in the cellar, and it’s been an hour of soaker...
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The new garden experiment is: Miracle-Gro Garden Mix vs 1 part soil, 1 part Manure. Facing south, the left box is the Miracle-Gro, the right is the soil-manure mix. In the manure pile, there was some well aged manure (no smell, as opposed to the fresher, smellier variety that I’d dug, then dumped and left there) which I screened – one shovel full manure, then one shovel full soil, mixed well, and put into the test bed/box. Ran out of seeds before I finished planting the soil/manure box, so sprouting will be a little sparse there. I find it is extremely easy to make a new garden experiment using boxes to separate the different soils. As these experiments are of the “home grown variety”, I have not separated the boxes with a barrier of soil between them as would be proper in scientific experiments. Once the frost has taken hold later (the later the better!) this year, I will...
Patty pan squash are a delicious summer squash that resemble a cross between an acorn and a UFO. They are delicious, reminding one of zucchini, though slightly firmer. Often times they are picked when only four to eight ounces (2-4″ in diameter), but the insides are edible up to over one pound, where the skins get tough, and the seeds begin to form in earnest. As shown in the pictures, patty pan squash really enjoy composted manure and rich soil. Pattypan variety is a bush type, making it an excellent choice for smaller gardens. Lettuce is often planted as a companion and the broad leaves shade the hot mid-summer sun so the lettuce won’t bolt as easily. Here, the lasagna bed and the wicking bed are tied for first, with the hugelkultur bed taking third, and bringing up the back end is the banana box beds.
With the rain, and the rain, plus the thunderstorms, unexpected downpours, not a lot has been happening in the garden other than the routine slug hunts, but all is not lost. Now that it’s drier (for the day), I’ll be making up the time creating a strawberry pyramid. Here’s the plan, and we’ll see how well it holds up over the season. I may have to plant something other than strawberries, since they are fruiting now – but companion plants can be harvested and the transplants will be moved after June: Create a “pyramid” out of double corrugated boxes (banana boxes), add the irrigation, fill with soil (from the old garden, or you could buy/make your own mix), fill around the sides of the boxes to keep the soil in place, then plant. More pictures to follow – no hieroglyphs: they take too long.
Watching “Over the Hedge” with my daughters about a month ago reminded me why I am glad I don’t live in a “community” where the by-laws strangle any creativity. We do have our laws out here in the foothills of the Berkshires, but we don’t have meetings every time someone wants to grow something different in their yard. Thinking along those lines though, I can imagine committees taking offense to some of my practices – like the banana boxes or containers for instance. You can disguise the banana box hack fairly easily with soil, stone and/or hay. You can even grow low-lying secondary crops on the outside of the boxes (lettuces, etc.) and have the main crop in the middle. A couple of crude examples are below:
Okay – I may have to bend the rules this weekend, weather permitting. The second day has brought industriousness and insight: 1/4 done, this bed is going to take approximately 21 more wheelbarrow loads of soil, 12 wheelbarrows full of “stump dirt” and/or a lot more rotting logs, and then a killing mulch to (hopefully) rid the soil of any remnants of “creeping charlie” – an invasive mint. On the bright side, the creeping charlie kept the rodents out of the fallow garden, so maybe it’s not such a bad thing… Another bright side, the “wicking bed” will only need a layer of soil due to settling from last year and some manure. The lasagna bed already has three layers (one manure, one soil, one grass clippings) from last year, so it will only need a couple of additional layers: I’m planning on manure/spent hay/killing mulch (newspaper as it’s planting time, otherwise I’d use cardboard), and then a light...
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