I don't actually own a camera. Almost doesn't make running a blog worth it. My girlfriend designing a blog header that is nothing short of incredible, certainly does. Anyway, we have yet to pick some tomatoes, a cuke, some crookneck squash, a birdhouse gourd, broccoli, and some spinach I just sowed. The tomatoes are staying there, because they all taste like...beef? Not fresh beef either, the kind you'd bring back to the store. Every variety (4) and over the last few weeks. It has to be something in the soil, then, not in timing, and I recall the only reason they grew was a 16-16-16 chemical fertilizer I used heavily for them this summer. It's suspicious, since they grew better than the rest of my garden (except the peas) but they're the only crop that tastes off. Visually they look perfect. And look, about those cheap wire tomato cages, even my malnourished, water-starved plants took those down. I don't understand how they keep selling when they can't hold any kind of tomato ever?
As I look on, over my sad kingdom of struggling vegetable citizenry, I realize the true impact of good soil. Wihtout organic matter and/or mulch, the soil couldn't retain water and my plants dried out daily. Without nutrients, vegetables idle, stagnate or turn yellow and wither away, depending on how deprived that variety is. This makes gardening a big waste of time. I'm debating expanding the garden, and going to an automatic drip system, but I will not be debating soil amendments come spring. I can hardly wait, but for now I will preoccupy myself with a "fall crop" of spinach. Mmmm iron.
Sunday, September 12, 2010
Saturday, August 21, 2010
Growing Onions
Advice is so difficult to follow. Newly inspired by re-visiting my favorite gardening blogs that had become rather inactive this summer, I checked out Backyard Homestead again and got busy with my plans for next year. Ah but I can't get 20 pages without getting into cold frames and floating row covers and north-south orientations. I have pages and pages of this stuff from my homestead reading; these were guidelines when my garden was a dream, helpful pointers that could shape my work into something that would promise returns. But I'm realizing, as I make the switch from design to reality, that they make the switch from guidelines to tools. Tools you have to keep track of, and maintain. They come at a cost to implement. And without having a real clear nut to PUT the wrench on, i.e. context, the wrench is useless. LISTENING to advice makes it a guideline, FOLLOWING advice makes it a tool. Since tools have a cost and you need context to know where to put them, they can be difficult to use. I think this is what makes advice, say, the Golden Rule, receive much enthusiastic head-bobbing, but be put so rarely into practice. I wish I had a picture of a Nasturtium from my garden here to break this up. Let's move on.
Dreams have a way of dying. And it's not by critic, who if they have any effect at all are there to prune the dead leaves and false starts. And it's not by money, though this is everyone's excuse, because people CONSTANTLY don't let a little poverty get in the way of their short-term dream of a drink or a smoke or a new car. Maybe it's laziness, and by that I mean people just don't want it enough. But for those dreams we really do want, and just never get, I think it's time, an invisible but very real deadline for our dreams.
No, not death. Much sooner. I think happiness is a tool our brain uses to get us off the couch, in a sense to realize our dreams, and when our brain figures out that new DIY off-grid cabin isn't cutting it, that we are still sitting here in front of HGTV with no new sustainable forest-themed housing options in our immediate future, it switches to something else. Without the promise of that happiness reward, PSSHT out the window the dream goes. Let's move on.
Look, it took me a long time to figure out exactly how onions grow. Big secret! It's not clear in my books or online or by asking at the feed store. They start from seed, and grow an onion. If the onion stays till spring, like nature intended, it sprouts and has flowers and little onion seeds in time to die that fall. This is the same model as carrots. Onion sets and onion seeds, then, are from the same growing season. Sets just have a headstart of a month or two, which is a big deal as it turns out. Not such a big headstart for carrots, which is why you don't hear about carrot sets. Always grow from sets. My sets doubled in size, and are almost half the size of a real onion! Next year I might even try compost, weeding, and regular watering!
Dreams have a way of dying. And it's not by critic, who if they have any effect at all are there to prune the dead leaves and false starts. And it's not by money, though this is everyone's excuse, because people CONSTANTLY don't let a little poverty get in the way of their short-term dream of a drink or a smoke or a new car. Maybe it's laziness, and by that I mean people just don't want it enough. But for those dreams we really do want, and just never get, I think it's time, an invisible but very real deadline for our dreams.
No, not death. Much sooner. I think happiness is a tool our brain uses to get us off the couch, in a sense to realize our dreams, and when our brain figures out that new DIY off-grid cabin isn't cutting it, that we are still sitting here in front of HGTV with no new sustainable forest-themed housing options in our immediate future, it switches to something else. Without the promise of that happiness reward, PSSHT out the window the dream goes. Let's move on.
Look, it took me a long time to figure out exactly how onions grow. Big secret! It's not clear in my books or online or by asking at the feed store. They start from seed, and grow an onion. If the onion stays till spring, like nature intended, it sprouts and has flowers and little onion seeds in time to die that fall. This is the same model as carrots. Onion sets and onion seeds, then, are from the same growing season. Sets just have a headstart of a month or two, which is a big deal as it turns out. Not such a big headstart for carrots, which is why you don't hear about carrot sets. Always grow from sets. My sets doubled in size, and are almost half the size of a real onion! Next year I might even try compost, weeding, and regular watering!
Friday, August 20, 2010
2 cherry tomatoes
Tasted funny, but I get excited about anything in the garden that isn't green.
Tomatoes are very heavy feeders - they are coming along nicely now that they are established, I don't know whether to credit the fertilizer last month or deep roots, but they're finally in full swing. That said, poor soil upon transplanting set them back a month.
Squash are very thirsty. Pumpkin transplanted poorly, finally flowering months later, but all three squash plants wilt on a day to day basis. Must have shallow roots.
Onions haven't gotten very big, in fact nothing produced very heavily. A couple contirbutions from each, and I think overall, without any soil amendments, the garden just gets by.
Tomatoes are very heavy feeders - they are coming along nicely now that they are established, I don't know whether to credit the fertilizer last month or deep roots, but they're finally in full swing. That said, poor soil upon transplanting set them back a month.
Squash are very thirsty. Pumpkin transplanted poorly, finally flowering months later, but all three squash plants wilt on a day to day basis. Must have shallow roots.
Onions haven't gotten very big, in fact nothing produced very heavily. A couple contirbutions from each, and I think overall, without any soil amendments, the garden just gets by.
Sunday, August 15, 2010
August 15th
Middle of August is like tax day for vegetables. The hammer drops, I know what made it, what will make it, and what won't. The peppers won't. Look, I just don't think they grow in Oregon. Other home gardens are hurting on the pepper front too - stores are growing decent ones but I doubt they're from around here.
Broccoli! Yesssss. Very easy plant, just takes a lot of patience. Strawberries did fine, but mice get them before I do. Just need protection for next year, that's all. No tomatoes yet, about a dozen for the year, but they are sad. They really need more nutrients than basic Oregon valley soil is prepared to offer. And warmth. Maybe mini-greenhouses next year.
Spinach bolts, and quick. Lettuce hangs around awhile, chard hangs around forever but we can't stand the taste or toughness raw. Cucumber plants are started late, so I will get maybe one green bat each. Pumpkin never took off - I only had one so more test subjects needed before I give up on them. Crookneck is my successful squash, another easy but patient plant. Onions look very small, most toppled over by now - may also be heavy feeders or just not enough sun. Again, sets are the only option here. My birdhouse gourds are weird, havent done anything. Nasturtiums are quick, hardy, beautiful. Peas came in with a light harvest and died - the pole variety produced more and live much longer. Beans are still coming around - easy and patient. Who knows what the carrots are doing - easy but didn't get enough sun in the shadiest part of my garden.
Sure would like a drip system next year. Havent weeded in months - not a real issue because, I suspect, seeds are waiting for the wet season to launch the counterattack. 6-year landscape fabric is half destroyed and crumbles between my fingers already - perhaps from UV since it wasn't covered?
Okie dokie thanks for reading - I'm curious to discover what, if any, of this information will be useful come spring.
Broccoli! Yesssss. Very easy plant, just takes a lot of patience. Strawberries did fine, but mice get them before I do. Just need protection for next year, that's all. No tomatoes yet, about a dozen for the year, but they are sad. They really need more nutrients than basic Oregon valley soil is prepared to offer. And warmth. Maybe mini-greenhouses next year.
Spinach bolts, and quick. Lettuce hangs around awhile, chard hangs around forever but we can't stand the taste or toughness raw. Cucumber plants are started late, so I will get maybe one green bat each. Pumpkin never took off - I only had one so more test subjects needed before I give up on them. Crookneck is my successful squash, another easy but patient plant. Onions look very small, most toppled over by now - may also be heavy feeders or just not enough sun. Again, sets are the only option here. My birdhouse gourds are weird, havent done anything. Nasturtiums are quick, hardy, beautiful. Peas came in with a light harvest and died - the pole variety produced more and live much longer. Beans are still coming around - easy and patient. Who knows what the carrots are doing - easy but didn't get enough sun in the shadiest part of my garden.
Sure would like a drip system next year. Havent weeded in months - not a real issue because, I suspect, seeds are waiting for the wet season to launch the counterattack. 6-year landscape fabric is half destroyed and crumbles between my fingers already - perhaps from UV since it wasn't covered?
Okie dokie thanks for reading - I'm curious to discover what, if any, of this information will be useful come spring.
Thursday, June 17, 2010
Catching up
I've never caught up with this blog. So every day I work in the garden, I don't want to post without catching up, and I get farther behind. So, I'm going to start with today, and just catch up with pictures.
I have a second birdhouse gourd, mysteriously, growing next to my first. I don't want to kill him, of course, but even one of these is about half too many. The cool season crops are explosive - onions, peas, summer squash, spinach. The warm aren't - tomatoes are finally recovering from the shock of the desolate soil, but my peppers are across the board almost complete write-offs. Highs have still only cracked 70 a couple days this year, with one crazy 85 in there.
Much less rain. I've been watering with milk jugs filled up under our leaky kitchen faucet. The garden is by now taking about 2 gallons, and I mean the faucet is bad but it's not THAT bad. The drip system is set up, but it leaks at the spigot where I didn't quite use the right size part, and there's a weak coupler that pops off when the system is pressurized. Finally, 1/2" line just doesn't cut it for distribution, no matter how cheap you can find some. It isn't flexible enough to service individual plants, and is big enough to damage seedlings as it gets knocked around. Either I get 1/4" line, or a watering can which cuts my losses to $3.
We have an aquarium, 20 gal! And a pond, which is really just a bathtub. With a sizable leak. You know, I'm really just digging a hole for it because at this point I don't have much else to do.
Ok I'm caught up! Pics next time.
I have a second birdhouse gourd, mysteriously, growing next to my first. I don't want to kill him, of course, but even one of these is about half too many. The cool season crops are explosive - onions, peas, summer squash, spinach. The warm aren't - tomatoes are finally recovering from the shock of the desolate soil, but my peppers are across the board almost complete write-offs. Highs have still only cracked 70 a couple days this year, with one crazy 85 in there.
Much less rain. I've been watering with milk jugs filled up under our leaky kitchen faucet. The garden is by now taking about 2 gallons, and I mean the faucet is bad but it's not THAT bad. The drip system is set up, but it leaks at the spigot where I didn't quite use the right size part, and there's a weak coupler that pops off when the system is pressurized. Finally, 1/2" line just doesn't cut it for distribution, no matter how cheap you can find some. It isn't flexible enough to service individual plants, and is big enough to damage seedlings as it gets knocked around. Either I get 1/4" line, or a watering can which cuts my losses to $3.
We have an aquarium, 20 gal! And a pond, which is really just a bathtub. With a sizable leak. You know, I'm really just digging a hole for it because at this point I don't have much else to do.
Ok I'm caught up! Pics next time.
Monday, May 31, 2010
Plants, time for
This goes best by variety, I think:
2 tomato varieties from seed. 4 starts - these are my backup in case I need to impress someone and everything else sucks. One is a cherry, which we don't really care for, and one is a determinate, which we really don't care for. The third is an Early Girl, which everyone apparently cares for. Then we get a Big Beef for $.32. Immediately the Early Girl, followed by the cherry and determinate, yellow and die from the bottom up. I realize that healthy sod is not an indicator of healthy soil, it might even indicate the opposite, but either way my soil is delicously nitrogen-free. I should have tilled the grass, worked in compost, blah blah expensive. I buy a 50-lb bag of 16-16-16 (recommended is 5-10-10). I spread the overkill in granular form around my plants, too little and they die, too much and they burn, and I have no idea how long it takes to work. So I throw a little food out when I go check on them everyday, even though the stuff from before is still there. It's exactly like caring for a dead hamster.
2 tomato varieties from seed. 4 starts - these are my backup in case I need to impress someone and everything else sucks. One is a cherry, which we don't really care for, and one is a determinate, which we really don't care for. The third is an Early Girl, which everyone apparently cares for. Then we get a Big Beef for $.32. Immediately the Early Girl, followed by the cherry and determinate, yellow and die from the bottom up. I realize that healthy sod is not an indicator of healthy soil, it might even indicate the opposite, but either way my soil is delicously nitrogen-free. I should have tilled the grass, worked in compost, blah blah expensive. I buy a 50-lb bag of 16-16-16 (recommended is 5-10-10). I spread the overkill in granular form around my plants, too little and they die, too much and they burn, and I have no idea how long it takes to work. So I throw a little food out when I go check on them everyday, even though the stuff from before is still there. It's exactly like caring for a dead hamster.
Friday, May 28, 2010
Field work
She and I make the garden - a 13'x14' plot with 115 sq ft of growing area, fashioned out of a sunny, out-of-the-way plot of grass with a couple of shovels and a hoe. I should mark everything off, the pathway, spots for the big plants, the outside edges. I don't. In the meantime I set up a border of some untreated 8' poles around the downhill half of the garden and move soil downhill to try and level it out some. As it turns out, whatever supplies I need, I will only buy at most half. I don't add more topsoil, so the slope ends up halfway between what it was, and level. And clumpy, because I didn't have a good way of breaking up sod clumps. As grass dies the clumps do seem to disintegrate. I also don't add compost or do any soil testing - this is a point with me. I didn't move to one of the most fertile valleys on the planet to grow plants out of bagged manure.
I mulch with straw, a bale from a feed and seed store. As it turns out, what supplies I do buy, I buy from the first place I find them available. I needed mulch, and I read about someone using straw somewhere once. Actually, this has worked out well so far, doesn't blow around, keeps things weed free on the path. For weeds I use landscape fabric, but I don't buy pins or anything to hold it down (see above). It lets plenty of sun through for the weeds, either way. Seems to slow down the rain, though. For water I use dripper line, 50' of 1/2" (!) for a couple bucks from Habitat for Humanity. The stuff doesn't shape well, and again no pins, so there's serpentine ridges running underneath the fabric. I hook it up with hose from Home Depot (another couple bucks) and hose from a nursery (not just a couple bucks). This means a lot of adapters and cursing to make up for all the slight size discrepancies. Bed, weeds, water. Time for plants.
I mulch with straw, a bale from a feed and seed store. As it turns out, what supplies I do buy, I buy from the first place I find them available. I needed mulch, and I read about someone using straw somewhere once. Actually, this has worked out well so far, doesn't blow around, keeps things weed free on the path. For weeds I use landscape fabric, but I don't buy pins or anything to hold it down (see above). It lets plenty of sun through for the weeds, either way. Seems to slow down the rain, though. For water I use dripper line, 50' of 1/2" (!) for a couple bucks from Habitat for Humanity. The stuff doesn't shape well, and again no pins, so there's serpentine ridges running underneath the fabric. I hook it up with hose from Home Depot (another couple bucks) and hose from a nursery (not just a couple bucks). This means a lot of adapters and cursing to make up for all the slight size discrepancies. Bed, weeds, water. Time for plants.
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