Wednesday, November 4, 2009

Garden therapy - A backyard garden update (November)

It's been another exciting month in the backyard garden. Let's get right to it!

HARVESTING

I pulled out the last of the sweet potatoes, which have now been cured and have found a temporary home in the coat closet (the coolest place in the house). I swear, there must be 100 pounds of them.

I'm also still harvesting a couple dozen green peppers every week, green onions, leaf lettuce, sage, basil, and now green beans too - about a handful a day!

PLANTING

I did quite a bit of planting this month too, primarily in Beds 4 and 7 (both foot-deep beds).

Bed 4 now has carrots, radishes, and 1015 onions. Bed 7 has been planted entirely in red and sweet yellow (1015) onions. I planted some of the onions in empty pots in the orchard, too.

Yeah, I kinda overdid it with the onions. I think I have about 150 of them in the ground...

But this means that finally, all 250 square feet of garden is planted. Thirteen months after my first bed was built, I've made a veggie garden empire! Mwahahahaha! No seriously, other than fruit, nuts, and rice, I'm pretty much eating out of my backyard. Awesome!

SOMEWHERE IN BETWEEN

Of course, there is tons of garden space that is in that not-ready-to-harvest-but-not-just-planted stage. The tomato plants are finally setting and I'm seeing tomatoes pop up here and there - we'll see how many we get before the first frost...

The broccoli, cabbage, kohlrabi, and red potatoes are coming along beautifully. The snow peas are growing, but slowly. Many didn't come up, so I've replanted several times. As far as bugs, I've had to fight off cabbage loopers for the last month, but everything seems to have survived.

We're still trying to get a handle on how much of each veggie we need to plant, but we're learning as we go. Last spring it was obvious we planted WAY too many greens and not near enough green beans. This fall, we're doing perfect on the greens and have a wonderful steady supply of green beans, although I may plant a full bed of them come spring.

Maybe more broccoli next year too, and a few less green pepper plants. But hey, it's all a learning experience and I'm having a blast. And who knows? Maybe by my December report, I'll have you drooling over my bushels of tomatoes. Prepare to drool!
Photo 1 - green beans and cabbage
Photo 2 - red potatoes, carrots, kohlrabi
Photo 3 - tomato plants (can you see the baby tomato in the pic?)

5 comments:

Going Crunchy said...

I'm so impressed! I swung by because I've got food on my mind too.

Chile said...

Can't have too many onions! But, if you do, dry 'em.

We lost all our tomatoes to the mosaic virus, darn it.

hmd said...

Going Crunchy - And it's soooo good when it's fresh :)

Chile - I agree with you. And I can cure them so they'll last 3 months not to mention picking them while they are still growing. I think we'll be in good shape - really there are 3 of us eating them here now.

Sorry to hear about your tomatoes. That's depressing :(

Lisa said...

So jealous! My garden did terribly this year. I'm hoping next year will go better.

hmd said...

Lisa - :( That's a shame. We had a rough patch over the summer since it was so hot and dry and it put off our fall planting for about a month, but we made it. I figure we did alright considering I know of at least one local farmer who gave up for a few months.

The nice thing is factors change year to year. Chances are you'll have a great growing season to look forward to next year :)