Cleaning Up With New Dirt

written by Yvonne

It's already August which means some of the Spring plantings need to get pulled to make way for Fall crops. Here you can see the cucumbers have been eaten alive and are ready to pull. We got a nice amount of cucumbers from these two plants this summer.

The okra will stay in for now, especially since it hasn't produced anything yet.

Just as in the last two years, we definitely have tomatoes, they are just coming in WAY later than everyone else's. And this year we even started them in pots. Nonetheless, we're getting a nice large batch of 'em.

And a few are even starting to ripen!

And this would be your standard HUGE squash plants...

and the annual squash blossom beauty shot.

As far as the herbs go, the dill is super spindly and not producing enough fronds to use. No parsley ever came up. Basil is finally here and being put to good use. And of course more oregano than even Lidia Bastianich can use.

Three very small, stunted pepper plants are hanging on...

and they do shows signs of producing peppers. If these actually turn into peppers, it may qualify for the world's smallest pepper plant.

Tom has been composting food scraps and yard waste for several years now and we decided it was time to put the compost to use. He cut back lots of vines that had grown all around and into the bins while I cut back low-hanging tree branches to make easier work of scooping out the compost. The green monster you see on the left is a squash plant growing out of one of the bins.

Tom emptied out two compost bins to spread over three of the beds. We've had eight compost bins for a while now but we really only use the front four so Tom dismantled two of and we'll concentrate on using just four from here on out.  Honey helped by running like a crazy dog around the beds.

Next you'll see the stages of what we did to each beds.  Bed #1 before.

Bed #1 with compost.

Tom picked up a load of dirt on Friday so we'd be ready to go Saturday filling the beds with new soil.

Bed #1 with new dirt.

Bed #2 before.

Bed #2 with all cow and crowder peas pulled out and compost added.

Bed #2 with dirt added.

Bed #3 with LOTS of grass, one dwarf okra plant (that's what the variety is actually called) and three dwarf pepper plants (not an actual variety, just a description).

Bed #3 with weeds pulled, compost added and topped with new dirt.

Bed #4 is chock full of tomatoes so....

we just pulled the dead cucumber plants and the Swiss chard. I got a good harvest from the chard then ditched all the bug-eaten leaves and pulled up the plants.

When pulling the cucumber plants, these two baseball-bat sized cucumbers were attached to the ends. Tom wants to cut them up and bury them to see if they'll grow. After shoveling compost and dirt for a good while, we were too tired to do any more so we thought this would do for now.

Dirt is all out of the truck. "Ok dogs, let's go for a ride back to the carport!  Olive/Honey place. Good girl Olive. Honey, Place. Place. Place"

"PLACE. HONEY, PLACE!"

Growing, Growing, Growing!

written by Yvonne

These beets made it all the way through a very cold winter, now it's time to eat 'em up. These few small beets produced two bags worth of greens. In addition, I harvested another three bags of spinach.

These are the beets still left in the ground. They've started to bolt so they'll be pulled up this week.

I planted bed #4 full of seeds right before winter hit and crossed my fingers that some would "take" but most didn't. Everything you see here is grass/weeds. Tom did a superb job of tilling the soil and getting the bed ready for summer plantings.

Hey look!  A few carrots did grow after all. They got thrown in with the beets and a few red potatoes, some garlic, purple onion, and asparagus for an oven-roasted root veg dinner Sunday night. Yum!

Once he tilled up the bed, he stuck in a couple of cages in and plated the three cucumber plants that were started in pots. At the very end of the bed (where you can see green) there is some Swiss chard coming up. We haven't been able to put hay down around the chard yet because it's hard to tell what is chard and what is weeds. The chard, however, is just now getting big enough that we'll be able to snuff out those weeds soon.

The rest of the photos are general updates on our Spring plantings:

Pole beans and bush beans.

One of these is broccoli and one is cabbage.

Crowder peas.

Lettuce, lettuce, lettuce

Spinach and kale.

Snap peas and snow peas.

BERRIES that are now starting to flower.

This is that one spot where we've attempted several things but had no luck. Tom planted some volunteer tomatoes here last year and they did good for a while, but ultimately the cold got to them so we don't know for a fact that tomatoes would grow here.  This year we're trying out two very hardy vegetables that grow very well in the beds, but take up a lot of space. On the left we planted okra and on the right is one straight-neck squash seedling and some black beauty squash seeds.  It will be great if these do well here because it would save us room in the beds.

And as usual, the dogs enjoyed their day in the garden with us.  :)

If you want to keep up with this year's bee news, be sure to go to www.tsbeeshoney.com. Doesn't look like there will be any honey for sale this year. As "urban farmers" we are at the whims of nature and that means sometimes we'll have success and sometimes not.

Holy Cow! It's October 1!

written by Yvonne

We've had pretty good success with the melons...

What do you mean, "Those don't look like melons, they look like butternut squash?"  Hmm. They sure do look like squash, don't they? Well, as it turns out, that's what they are.

Before you think us complete idiots, yes, we had planted some volunteer plants that we had assumed were melons, but we also planted a TON of melon seeds in the same location so we figured at least SOME of what came up were melons.

Early on, when we still thought they were melons, we cut one off the vine that was white-ish in color. It was green inside, but of course Honeydew melons are green so we proceeded to try cutting it with the intent of eating it. The knife wouldn't even go thought it. Then we smelled it - hmm, doesn't smell like melon. Kinda smells like squash. Know what? I think this is a squash. We left the others on the vine and just watched their progress.  They continued to change color and get more butternut-squashy looking until we finally determined, sho nuf' those are squash. We've eaten two now and these two are ready to be eatn. They taste GREAT as squash, not so good as melons.

We purchased new fall seeds from Sow True in Asheville to get more Fall crops going.  We bought 5 varieties of lettuce, two carrots and spinach. (Some of what's shown is seeds we already had.)

I did some work on the small herb box. The oregano finally came up but it was long after the dill, basil and cilantro. I cut most off this oregano to dry.

I cut back all of the basil and made a large batch of pesto. The first of the season. (Honey helped.)

Bed #1 is looking good with our late summer crops.

The dwarf okra is certainly dwarf in size. We really didn't get the okra planted in time but I think if Tom get's a least one serving, he'll be happy.  The days are still warm (high 70s) but the evenings are getting cooler and cooler so I don't expect they'll last long.

Tom has been pruning the tomatoes plants and it seems to be working. As new branches come out, he pinches them off. This is supposed to direct the growing energy to the fruit instead of the plant.

It looks like we'll have at least two varieties of late-summer tomatoes. Although today is October 1 so I think they'd technically they are early Fall tomatoes. Is there even such a thing?  I just hope they hold on and ripen before it gets too cold.

Same with round two of cucumbers. Hopefully they hold on long enough to produce something, but I won't be surprised if they don't.  Not sure if I mentioned this in the last post or not, but Tom planted these cucumbers the same way he did some of the tomatoes; he just took a cucumber that had fallen off the vine and partially broken open, and shoved it into the ground. It certainly worked!

Peppers are STILL putting out.

And changing colors too.

We have had several dinners over that last few months of Red Pepper Fajitas and it looks like there will be for this weekend!

The new kale Tom planted a few weeks ago is coming along.

The collards are small but are coming out.

Now, on to Bed #3. Here is the before of our embarrassing laziness of the latter half of the summer.

Tom got to work pulling out the mass of old tomato plants and VERY old kale.

Way to tackle it, babe!

Once Bed #3 was all cleared, I planted five types of lettuce. As I face the bed, from right to left is:

1. Red Romaine
2. Lolla Rosa Darky
3. Speckled Amish Butterhead
4. Green Oakleaf
5. Black Seeded Simpson

As much salad as we're eating these days, we felt a whole bed of lettuce would not be overdoing it.

Tom also added beets and more collard seeds to Bed #2 (behind him). Then a good watering for all the new seeds.