9-5-2024 Garden and homesteading update,
Hello, hello!
Life's been keeping me a bit busy recently but I do have a bit of an update for the garden~
Finally Got manure in to fill in a few beds and top off rows. (Which I've started and got going to prep for winter)
Pulled everything but the carrots, cucumber, peppers and 1 tomato (tho the tomatoes on a wire line. I'm still thinking bout pulling it)
I found a few of the armenian cucumbers that might have viable seed, ive got to pull them apart and clean them tonight to dry and give a viability test. I'll leave the cucumbers growing for now. The pollinators and hummingbirds have been using them for shade and fuel. Plus I like the flush of lush foilage and ground cover. It's been extra hot this summer so we haven't seen as much produce as I usually crow about from them. When the weather starts going back to regulalry below 95*f I'm hoping to see more fruiting.
Started up a new bed in the garden. Its a raised bed, two boards tall. This one will be layered on the bottom as usual with cardboard thickly to repell and deter the grass a little bit. Instea dof paper shreds, i cracked up the sunflower stalks I've been saving up to fit the bed size and filled it a good bit with the smaller ones. Topping it off with the manur/compost. I also threw some of the dead cucumber vines with the sunflower stalks to sort of fill it. Not tight packed, just loosely. Just wanna see of it'll work similar to hugelkultur. (Link at end to Wikipedia page).
The sweet potato vines are starting to take off. Thankfully this means I'll have some greens to split between family and the chickens soon. Maybe even some spuds at the end of the season 🤞
The thyme plant kicked the can, the asparagus is ferning out, but not stalking. The basil is seeding pretty good. So with luck some wild seeded basil starts soon.
The sunchokes have stunted a bit, this week I'm gonna see about putting a shade up to see if that'll help them out.
The hollyhocks in the hen alley have been sort of taken over by grasshoppers. So not too much growth among them. Think I'll need to spend a few nights catching them, freezing them and giving them to the chickens for a little extra snack time delight. (Plus getting them out of the garden) I think at that time I'll also lay out some new cardboard as the ground cover has disintegrated pretty well. Looking good beneath on the soil.
Started filling in the area I wanted to put melons in, may instead end up using that area to grow winter veggies, like cauliflower, cabbage or broccoli.
Still need to mix the seed starting soil, cut up some cardboard tubes (gonna try to use them for some seed starting) and get those winter crops started up.
Getting ready to dig out my floral patch to plant elsewhere. (I've been waiting for cooler weather.)
And start up the new direct seed rotation plan (carrots, lettuce, radish, nasturtium and other)
And a few other minor tasks related to the garden and some major ones later too that I'm not gonna get ahead of myself yet on grandoise plans 😂
That's the garden update for now :)
🌱💚Happy Gardening and homesteading💚🌱
Links for additional infos:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/H%C3%BCgelkultur
