Garden Update August 24

Good turnout at the garden today ......

Finally a few bush beans to harvest ...... these were planted much to close together which makes picking rather difficult, and it appears russet mites may have arrived

Last bed of potatoes  harvested - French Fingerling and Russian Blue - missed taking a pic of our harvest!!

the pole beans just did not fare well this year - lack of water combined with russet/spider mites damage resulted in almost no harvest - so time to clean up the trellis

the cleared potato bed made room for more fall planting - this time we filled the bed with Bloomssdale spinach, Pac Choi, Nappa Cabbage (Little Jade), Yu Choi Sum and Gai Lan (Green Pearl); fall is the best time to start Asian Greens with the cooler weather - this prevents the plants bolting and going to seed very quickly

Overview

a few tomatoes - rodent issues of late are impacting our harvest ... while kale and chard continue to provide the bulk of our harvest

August 17 Fall Fast Approaching

Rather short on volunteers of late, but two of us managed to make the garden today ...... really good to see lots of seedling growth thanks in part to the rain we finally had!! No amount of hand watering seems to quite match a good rainfall!!

A few pics, first up our Honey Bear squash -



 the Lacinato kale continues to provide great harvests - hmm.... almost time for some kale chips

cabbage transplants, three types of radish and mesclun mix fill the bed; the watermelon radish (middle row) has a very different leaf form!! 

more lettuce/mesclun mix will soon provide baby greens for stir fry and salad - and the Sugar Ann snap peas are starting to flower!!

still more to seed - this week additional beet seed was added to our beet bed - hoping for better germination; spinach sown among the strawberries and some moss curled parsley under our blueberry bushes

this summer has been so amazing with "hot" (at least for the coast) temperatures and little rain - the tomatoes are loving it - many of the larger varieties are well in to their ripening phase ...... this pic shows mostly Maglia Rosa - amazing texture and flavour when picked at first blush 

August 3 - Time for Fall/Winter Planting

We did a lot of clearing and sowing in the garden today - a quick summary:

Bed 1:  bed cleared, not much harvested from previous sowings - too dry?  Replanted with Nantes Coreless and Nutri-Red carrots, now just to keep them moist until germination

Bed 2:  portion of bed cleared and seeded with Kohlrabi "Kolibri" and scallions

Bed 3:  baby cabbage transplants added, in addition to three rows of radishes:  German Giant, Watermelon and French Breakfast;  it is recommended the Watermelon radish be planted for fall harvest

Bed 9:  our Sugar Ann snap peas are coming along but remaining seeds did not germinate, so mesclun seed mixes were broadcast sown:  Renee's Quick Stir Fry Blend, Wine Country Mesclun and WCS Provencal Mix

Bed 5 is looking good and providing plenty of chard and kale - two of the best long term crops you can grow

Here's a link to West Coast Seeds Fall/Winter planting guide -
http://viewer.zmags.com/publication/3c923367#/3c923367/1

Herb Bed gone wild

and our harvest:  chard, kale potato onions, very small leeks, onions and some wonderful sweetpeas

July 27 Major Clean Up

A big THANK YOU to all those able to help with the clean up  .........

and a few hours later - off it goes

our new composters should keep the rodents at bay

maybe we'll even get to harvest some beets this fall ...... Red Ace, Cylindra and Beet Blend fill in the bed vacated by our potatoes

 

the squash bed is really filling in 

and the garden beds overflow with potatoes, kale, herbs and bush beans

a portion of today's harvest