Two more 3' x 6' raised bed gardens were set up this weekend. One is now filled with bok choy seed and garlic. The other is still in a pending stage because it needs more soil. It will be my blackberry garden. Garden soil for vegetables, fruits and flowers needs to be carefully considered. The soil on our land is stony, lots of clay and little nutrients. I've tried to build it and make it more loomy but it takes just too darn long. The composter I use for garden debris and kitchen scraps and the hen house mulch also cannot keep up with my demand for gardening soil. I used about 1/3 of the composter soil as the base for both new gardens. I've been buying Miracle-Gro garden soil to fill the raised beds. It does do a fantastic job of supporting the plants throughout their life and the production volume based on this summer's tomatoes is great. Some of the volume may be attributed to the composted soil mixed in with the bought soil.
My other two raised bed gardens continue to produce: lettuce, turnip greens, cherry tomatoes and peppers. I have installed a cold frame canopy over one of the raised beds in order to have four seasons of vegetables.
Cold Frame
Our consumption of home-grown fall vegetables has increased to the point that I no longer need to buy salad greens at the store. The mescali mix of lettuce is just awesome. It grows very well and seems highly bug resistance. My turnip greens were gorgeous and tasty and then the patch was hit by pests over night. They decimated the crop. I am trying to decide whether to pull the skeleton greens out and start over or wait and see what the plants do with the secondary leafs and roots. I did break-out the organic bug spray solution, NEEM.
Organic Pest Control
The deer are back. They have babies with them. Turkeys, deers and raccoons, oh my! Wish I had a organic pest control for them. The turkeys also had a bumper crop of offspring this year. Now our turkey population is around 150 birds that roost in our mature oak trees hanging over Limestone Creek. It is very hard to hunt them as they disperse throughout the homes in the neighborhood. Can't shoot a neighbor or a pet! The deer are nuisances in the garden and graze the undergrowth around the trees to nothing. They compact soil and love to eat my greens.
They are lucky critters though; my hubby and I have converted to vegetaranism due to my gout. Red meat, fish, shellfish, turkey, chicken - all meat - have been given up. We have also cut our consumption of beer and wine to nothing. (I did enjoy a $12 glass of merlot this weekend when we ate out). So far, no further gout attacks. My hubby has lost fifteen pounds and I have lost eight pounds since we became all veggie-lovers.
My Dad loved bitter mustard greens. His way of planting his fall garden was to dump his turnip green seeds and his mustard green seeds together, till up the garden and then broadcast the seeds by thowing them in handfuls like baseballs at the ground. He would have a half acre of greens. I hated the taste of mustard greens; still do. But Dad would always have a pot of greens on the stove, bacon grease flavored, with buttermilk in the frig and cornbread in the iron skillet ready to go. I think the greens, buttermilk and cornbread combo kept his blood pressure down, his arteries clear and his overall health as hearty as an ox.
No comments:
Post a Comment