Goal for 2022: 500 pounds of veggies from my little garden!
It’s August 15 and today I surpassed last year’s yield of 250 pounds. Picking these six eggplant helped.
I need to harvest another 125 pounds to meet my goal, but the garden’s still going strong, so it’s definitely doable.
The zucchini, tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, corn, butternut squash, sweet potatoes, beans and cucumbers are still producing. Plus, I planted broccoli (under the row cover), cabbage, carrots, beets and radishes to harvest in the fall. I’m also going to start some lettuce.
It’s only for a few weeks.
Apparently they both feed heavily on the same nutrients and would stunt each other’s growth if interplanted.
I wasn’t planning on planting them together. I was planning on planting one after the other (cabbage and kohlrabi in the spring and tomatoes, peppers and eggplant in the summer), but the first wasn’t finished when it was time to plant the second. So I researched the advisability of planting the second amongst the first. The answer was a resounding no.
But waiting would put me weeks behind schedule, so I did it anyway.
After harvesting two cabbages that were (almost!) ready, there was room on the end of the bed for two tomato plants. The eggplants went in where the kohlrabi came out. Then I just tucked the peppers in wherever there was a break in cabbage leaf-cover. That left me with 3 tomato plants and a pepper or two. The peppers I tossed (in the compost pile). The tomatoes I planted in grow bags.
I know I have to amend the soil in Bed #1 pretty heavily. If I encircle the root ball of each individual plant with compost (like a fertility forcefield) maybe all the dire predictions on the internet won’t come true.
They get no respect. First they were overrun by radishes and lettuce that bolted and burst into seed. Then they were infested by bugs. Now they’re blocked by bean towers that let no sun shine through. Sometimes I think that I’ve tortured them long enough and that the poor little things have earned a nice long rest in the compost pile. Sometimes I think that the cooler weather is coming on and they could bounce back and thrive. I don’t know what to do.
Love butternut squash: in chili, soups and stuffings and roasted all by itself (with a little olive oil or sage butter). I didn’t grow any last year because I wanted to see if the zuchetta was any good as a winter squash. In my opinion, it wasn’t, so this year I made sure I had room in the garden for butternut squash. I started 4 plants the first week of June, but the vines have overrun the raised bed and grown into such a crazy mess, I don’t know if I still have four or not. Yesterday (August 1) my husband took a weed whacker to the very tall grass and weeds that had grown in between my raised beds while I frantically tried to pull the vines out of harm’s way. Some of the vines look a little dinged up, but I think they’ll be okay.
There are seven fruits currently growing, I hope I get at least twelve for the season.
The corn was planted June 1 (or thereabouts). Three eight-foot rows, twelve plants per row. The variety is “On Deck” by Burpee. They all sprouted, but some furry suburban backyard creature found them irresistible and nibbled quite a few of them to the ground. There are 25 plants left. Since broccoli, a heavy feeder, was grown in this bed in the spring, I worked some fertilizer into the soil before planting.
The vines winding through the stalks are butternut squash.
July 24: I saw some silks peeking out of the leaves today so I broke off a tassel and started pollinating! Small patches of corn usually need a little help.
I don’t usually have much luck with corn, but since this is a variety bred for small spaces, I thought I’d give it a try. Fingers crossed.
I’ve had some issues with broccoli in the past.
I expected them to grow fast, produce a good size head and then hold in the garden till I had time to deal with them.
I was usually disappointed.
Until now. I think I’ve found the variety for me. Eastern Magic by Johnny’s Selected seeds is early enough, productive enough and sturdy enough to make it a spring staple in the garden.
I started 10 plants on February 15th, and fertilized them twice before transplanting them the first week of April. I covered them with a row cover, because (I think) everything grows better under a row cover. Also, we had a very cold spring and this way they were protected if things got frosty out there.
May 30th: So far I’ve harvested 5 broccoli crowns and a bunch of side shoots. Tomorrow I’ll pick the rest and pull the plants from the ground. Since broccoli are heavy feeders, I’ll work some fertilizer into the soil before the next planting.
I picked these guys on May 31:
So the grand total for the spring harvest was 8.15 pounds of broccoli. I only included the crowns and the side shoots in the weight, because those are the only parts we eat! The other parts of the plant went into the compost pile.
I have a few seeds left so I’m going to start a fall crop around mid-June.
August 1, 2021: Not a big fan of cucumbers. They’re not the most versatile vegetable and their taste is rather uninspired. I do like pickles, though, so I generally grow enough to make eight or ten quarts and then yank the vines from the ground. I made 3 quarts yesterday and then picked six more cucumbers today, including this guy.
If I make pickles tomorrow I’ll be halfway to my goal.