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This will not go down as a banner year in the garden around here.
We have a whole list of excuses.
1. We couldn’t beg, borrow, or steal a tiller.
2. It rained so much, we couldn’t plant until late.
3. Worms sneaked in and about killed the cabbage in one night.
4. It got too hot too early this year.
5. CHICKENS.
6. CHICKENS.
7. CHICKENS.
8. CHICKENS.
9. After it quit raining, it was too dry for too long, and then it started pouring again.
10. Have I mentioned the CHICKENS?
Ever-increasing chicken barricades.
Cabbage. A sad, sorry sight.
Herbs! The parsley, basil, and several other herbs, are doing pretty good.
The grapes are hanging in there (as are the fruit trees).
The squash and zucchini are struggling.
Blueberries and blackberries got planted, at least.
Tomatoes are doing okay, but not stunning. We even have this volunteer tomato plant that popped up over by the goat pen.
My hanging baskets are growing like crazy. If it hadn’t been for the puppy, I’d have done more container gardening, which would have helped control the too much water/too little water situation, but this wasn’t the year for container gardening here.
I’m not even getting a lot of flowers this year.
One lonely, depressed sunflower.
We have various other vegetables in there–peppers, green beans, corn, cucumbers, and so on. Nothing is doing so good that you’d want to write home about it.
However, we do now qualify by government standards as a mint farm!
Mint julep, anyone?
Depending on how your garden is doing, please feel free to commiserate or brag. Though if you’re bragging, don’t be surprised if I mail you a chicken.
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"It was a cold wintry day when I brought my children to live in rural West Virginia. The farmhouse was one hundred years old, there was already snow on the ground, and the heat was sparse-—as was the insulation. The floors weren’t even, either. My then-twelve-year-old son walked in the door and said, “You’ve brought us to this slanted little house to die." Keep reading our story....
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My runner beans look puny, but managed to produce a few flowers – which the hot, dry weather stripped from them before they could set a single bean!
My tomatoes have battled against the strong winds a couple of weeks ago and are now very bedraggled and mis-shapen specimens.
Even my “butterfly bush” budleia looks about to keel over from lack of rain, and they usually even manage to grow in the cracks between bricks on old buildings!
The lawn looks like a hayfield after the harvester has finished.
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I learned some interesting info. preparing my post on OKRA. Have a look if you have time.
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I planted my tomatoes by seed (Cherokee Purple) and I am only getting the flowers now. So delayed.
The melons are at the farmers market and they are good…so good. But my melons are just a vine right now.
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We have been getting quite a few cucumbers, tomatoes, peppers and okra, but other things did not do well at all. The asparagus (3rd year) didn’t produce at all, the berry bushes are under white fly attack, the kohlrabi, didn’t produce… Oh well, there is always next year…
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We fence it to keep the chickens out so they don’t scratch out the seeds. Squash bugs have destroyed any hopes of a zucchini crop this year. The Bloody Butcher field corn (I’m hoping to have my own cornmeal.) looks great. Tomatoes, Brussels sprouts, cabbage and kale are hiding. I know I planted them but the weeds have just taken over. ARRGGHHH!
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I am very late with my garden for the reasons you listed.
I won’t know how well things have really been until frost.
The sweet corn is nearing ready so the raccoons are probably already on the road to the farm.
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(Now where can I put the chicken…. oh, I have just the spot)
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~12 strawberries
2 blueberries
5 raspberries
They’re all first year plants, so it’s about what I expected. Can’t wait for next year!
I’m also hoping for some purple string beans, they’re flowering now. I planted about a million seeds and four of them grew into plants. But they’re also *covered* in bugs, so I’m trying not to get my hopes up.
Oh yeah, and bucketloads of parsley around the compost heap, and a single volunteer tomato plant that I just noticed yesterday. I moved my mint back into a pot in the spring, and I think I may have finally gotten rid of all the sprouts from the leftover roots.
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The plants have put on suckers and are trying to re-grow. I’ll keep fertilizing–and remember my garden motto—There’s always next year!
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http://jerrybaker-amg.blogspot.com/
I decided NOT to plant this year- I am supporting my local farmers.
Good Luck. There is still time for a fall harvest.
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This year is doing a little better despite a late planting thanks to a very strange cool, wet spring for central CA. Followed by recent 100+ heat that brought all blossom set to a complete halt. Now that we’re in an newly strange stretch of unseasonably cool weather of mid80’s, I’m hoping to see pole beans finally, lemon and slicing cukes, more of the summer squash (huge success THIS year!), and maybe, just maybe, the Brandywine tomato will follow her varied sisters of heirloom and cherry heritage to setting fruit. I’ve managed to pick only a few sweet peppers as the heat keeps trying to fry them back to the ground. Now if I can just keep the darn dog from filching the half-ripe tomatoes despite the large cages, it might be a decent year!
In the end, no bragging, just grateful for what’s making it … besides, I’m afraid the dog would adopt the hapless bird and heaven only knows what might happen ….. !
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So…this is a brag, I suppose.
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Grass over took the cabbage and broccoli. I gave up on those long ago. The cabbage is all eaten by worms and the broccoli is just a few tiny heads. Enough for one quiche so far and that’s about it.
I had a good crop of celery growing from several cut ends. I accidentally tilled them all up. (Having a tiller is not necessarily a good thing…) My lasagna garden was not done with a tiller and its my best garden. I just keep adding all the fall leaves and grass clippings and manure on top and it never needs tilled.
On the good side, the corn is looking great! We are going to have way more than our freezer will hold. I’ll be giving lots of that to the Salvation Army Soup Kitchen.
Also doing well is the squash. It always does really well. We’ll be over run with Ambercup and turban. I’ll also have several spaghetti squash, acorn, sweet mama and maybe a few pink banana and hopefully at least one “upper ground sweet potato” squash, maybe. Possibly some Hopi gray and black, time will tell.
I’m drowning in zucchini!
My ground cherries and garden huckleberries are really, really big and full! Not ready yet.
The cantaloupe barely came up and I had such hopes for 5 gallons of cantaloupe wine. No going to happen. The watermelon might be ok, not great, certainly not enough for watermelon wine. The cucumbers are looking ok but not producing much. The beans grew but I didn’t plant nearly enough. We just eat them as they come in, none for the freezer. The peas were not too good either. I don’t know about the sweet potatoes. Waiting till fall for that.
The few tobacco plants that managed to sprout are looking great! Not nearly enough for the year but a good start. I might even get some seed for next year. I will start them a lot earlier and in a good seed mix next spring.
My raspberries produced and produced and produced! I had so much lettuce that most of it went into the compost. The spinach was a dissappointment, eaten by slugs. The rhubarb was good and I just got 14 more good sized root pieces from cleaning out my MIL’s! Next year we’ll be drowning in it! The green onions are all we could have ever hoped for! We’ll have all the onion we need for months to come.
A few carrots actually came up and seem to be growing, imagine that. Never had any luck with carrots. I keep trying though.
Spanish onions seem to be growing. Time will tell about those. Never grew them before.
The bell peppers are doing well and producing a lot of peppers! I desperately need to feed them this week but I just can’t seem to get out there. I have some good chicken manure to put on them, when I get a chance.
Herbs are doing well. I also have lots of mint, everywhere! I have a post on my blog about what to do with all that mint.
All in all its going fairly well. The garden is always full of joy and dissappointment. I can’t focus on nuturing everything, I guess. I learn more each year about growing specific things. This year I learned that the tomatoes need lime and magnesium to use the calcium from the egg shells I mulched them with this year. I had such hopes of putting up dozens of jars of tomatoes and making sauce and paste and ketchup…
I knew you’d have no garden if the chickens got into it. Been there! Sometimes you just want to put them all into the stew pot!! Maybe you should fence the whole garden area in? They sure do love small tender pumpkins and squash growing on the vine and ripe tomatoes, asparagus, cukes, peppers, peas …
I had to barrier my lasagna garden last year to keep the groundhogs out. Now I have Buck for that! No groundhogs!
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And now…it looks like I’m going to have to move next week, so I now have to re-sack all the compost/vermiculite/manure I used to make up my squares so I can take all that good stuff with me. And it’s time to START the fall garden here. sigh
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Herbs have grown well;dill is 3 feet tall. We were not able to start setting plants out until late May. Spring come late to Coloado Springs.Please send the chicken UPS!!!
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I love love love your blog, thanks so much for sharing. I have to fence my garden to keep the chickens out too…..who’s idea were they anyway? oh, yeah….mine.
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The tomaoes haven’t done well. The leaves curled up and the production has been sad. We had an early crop of green beans, and have now replanted in an attempt to get a second crop. We are cutting lots of okra and it looks like it will continue. The purple hullpeas did ok, but a friend had a big patch, so I’ve ended up canning about 40 quarts, and my brother has put enough in his freezer to feed a small army this winter. I also made pea hull jelly.
The small watermelon patch has about 10 melons, but the one I cut the other night had very little taste. I personally think they got in bed with the cukes and squash.
Oh well, there’s always next year.
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