What Did You Do In The Garden?

[flowerbug]

mowed.

brought in the sweet onions today. four buckets worth. should keep us in onions for a month or two but likely not too long as we do eat a fair amount of onions and pretty much every day.

flies were biting. i wished i could bite back.

 

[Phaedra]

cutting flowers and setting up supports for MUMs, as we will have very heavy rain tomorrow whole day

It will be a waste if such a wonderful dinnerplate dahlia is destroyed by the rain, so I brought it in.

 

[Branching Out]

I harvested quite a number of dry beans yesterday, and then planted out seedlings of dill, Baltic Red kale, Vibrant Joy bok choy, Green Wave mustard, and a whole bunch of lettuce. This time I started the dill in little 'pinches' so I could grab small clumps and transplant them. It worked really well! The dill and lettuce in the red bin were started in the shade on the north side of the house on July 29th.

Also, my friends had grown Cascadia peas this summer, and I stumbled across the pile of spent vines after they had pulled them. They were about to toss the whole bunch; fortunately I was able to glean lots of pods that yielded about a cup of dry seed for planting next year. While my friends have had their garden for a decade they have never saved seed-- not even from they easy plants like beans, peas, or tomatoes. They just buy more of the same seed each year. We are hoping to change that.

 

[Dirtmechanic]

How many peppers are in a peck of peppers? I picked a peck...I think!

 

[digitS']

Picked greenbeans.

Luckily, DW is good at it. Not at double my speed, that is nearly the story when we pick peas together. I just can't see peas very well, apparently. She needs to check my work and comes up with lots that I miss. Beans, she also does very well .

Over 10 gallons between the 2 of us.

This is a continuing story. Although it was unusual to have problems with germination early in the 23 season, not much seed is planted early, anyway. The peas take up lots of room for a not especially productive crop. The vines are taken out after their first production. I dare not use all the square feet for the greenbeans to replace the peas because they just  unload in early September!

Too many cherry tomatoes — for weeks. And now, the serious splitting has subsided. I wish I would have put in a third planting of sweet corn. I'd almost be willing to go buy some right now. Usually works, should have done it.

Steve

 

[Dirtmechanic]

Picked greenbeans.

Luckily, DW is good at it. Not at double my speed, that is nearly the story when we pick peas together. I just can't see peas very well, apparently. She needs to check my work and comes up with lots that I miss. Beans, she also does very well .

Over 10 gallons between the 2 of us.

This is a continuing story. Although it was unusual to have problems with germination early in the 23 season, not much seed is planted early, anyway. The peas take up lots of room for a not especially productive crop. The vines are taken out after their first production. I dare not use all the square feet for the greenbeans to replace the peas because they just  unload in early September!

Too many cherry tomatoes — for weeks. And now, the serious splitting has subsided. I wish I would have put in a third planting of sweet corn. I'd almost be willing to go buy some right now. Usually works, should have done it.

Steve

My eyes must be tired -I started with you pickling green beans. That got me going!

I squeezed my cherries into tomato sauce. They bring some sweetness.

 

[flowerbug]

picked dry beans the past several days to get the gardens all picked through that were ready. also Mom got the last of the onions pulled and i cleaned them up for her so she didn't have to do that - they can be used this week for onion soup and baked beans. they'll do.

then i got some of the beans sorted and ready to be bagged or in flats ready to dry, a bit more of that can be done tomorrow to finish. shelled some of them because the pods were pretty dirty and didn't look very good and didn't want to bring all that inside plus it was nice out and no mosquitoes.

raining a few minutes ago when i woke up - came in and had a snack and sprawled out to take a break and fell asleep in a few minutes so waking up in time to putter around and do some reading/writing and the back to snooze again in a bit.

only one bean patch to finish and it's not ready yet and may take a week or two to go. it's ok...

the two hot pepper plants that are left producing i may try to see if the greenhouse guy may want them to see if he can sell them or give them away at the farmers market this week. i've never been to that and usually am sorta too busy to even go and on top of that i'm scheduled that day for other reasons already. heh...

 

[digitS']

Don't be showing up to give things away at a farmers' market, @flowerbug . You will likely be asked to leave. Even a guy playing music on the sidewalk was shooed away from ours. Kinda surprised me but there was another musician at the other end of the market, asked to be there.

Today, I should be pulling some old Choi Sum. On several of those plants, the first bad aphid population of '23 I have seen in either garden. They can go underground in that bed, another bed, or with the compost. Maybe I will lay out a tarp and collect as many as possible rather than have them escape above ground.

Old cucumbers, a bucket of compostables, rhubarb leaves ... I have reached that time of the year when finding locations for plant wastes becomes a problem. Digging holes becomes a problem because of the commitment to succession planting here at home. Yes, I could haul stuff 17 miles to the distant garden but ... I dont wanna.

Steve

 

[Branching Out]

I was able to harvest quite a bit of dill and flat Italian parsley seed today, as well as picking another bucket of pickling cucumbers. Some energy went into bumping up kale, purple sprouting broccoli, cabbage, radicchio, and chard starts so I can keep them covered to protect them from cabbage moths for another week or two; after that they will get planted out into the spots where beans are now. Then I did a happy dance because I think we caught the rat that ate all of my chick peas. And still no rain, so many hours spent watering. The ground is so dry that the grass feels like concrete when you walk on it. This chart show the total precipitation for Vancouver, B.C. -- over the last four months we have only received about 2cm (3/4") of rain.

 

[flowerbug]

Don't be showing up to give things away at a farmers' market, @flowerbug . You will likely be asked to leave. Even a guy playing music on the sidewalk was shooed away from ours. Kinda surprised me but there was another musician at the other end of the market, asked to be there.

i'd give them to my friend to sell if he'll take them. i'm not going myself.

Old cucumbers, a bucket of compostables, rhubarb leaves ... I have reached that time of the year when finding locations for plant wastes becomes a problem. Digging holes becomes a problem because of the commitment to succession planting here at home. Yes, I could haul stuff 17 miles to the distant garden but ... I dont wanna.

we have the opposite problem, i'm always wishing i had more stuff to bury. all of them can use whatever organic materials i can scrounge to put in there.