July garden pics and tips

One hill of each summer squash (not 3) this year. Four varieties are framing the okra in the center which is on a 10" spacing between plants and about 2' from the squash plants.

We are so dry it was time to get out the soaker hoses.  I have cabbages and other cruciferous veggies in a raised mound. Peppers, eggplant, and a few tomatoes are sharing space with radicchio, fennel, and kale in my 3 wooden beds.  Mulch surrounds most of the beds, wood chips while rotted straw is around plant rows.  The soil isn't what I would want, but it will build with time.  

I have a 6x6 patch of onions (Alisa Craig and Copra on kitty corners) alternated with Ambition Shallots and Lancelot leeks.  I have watered them regularly to keep them well hydrated but not wet.

Pole beans and  bush beans are sharing the same space.  I pulled out the netting with twine in the centers to give me more room as my tepee was closing in on my for picking.  I got my first handful of baby beans on Sunday.

My fencing is hardware cloth around the base with a nylon mesh to bring the total height around 8'.  The rest of the garden is at the mercy of what surrounds us.  I hope for the best every day that I see the woodchucks running around the nursery.

The Swiss chard has gone gang busters on me this year.  I planted so few, but boy did they grow!  I don't think the carrots that are interplanted stand a chance.

The garlic ended up in the enclosure because I didn't have anything else ready last fall.  It is almost ready to pull and dry.  My lettuce crop bolted, so the dino kale has been liberated.  The adjacent carrots are loving the space and will really appreciate the garlic leaving their south exposure open.  I tucked a row of fennel plants next to my pea trellis.  I am letting the peas dry down again this year as the seed saving worked out so good last year.  Peas are self-pollinating so they came true from seed.

I am done hilling the potatoes for the season.  There is about 18" of dirt, compost, and rotting straw around the plants. Winter squash was put in at the head of the potato area.  Yukon Gold and Molly purples are my varieties this year.  I miss my Norland reds.

I went with 18 tomatoes this year.  I have a single stake method with twine corkscrew twisting around plants and stems to hold them up.  I put the tags at the top of the poles this year as I couldn't find them in the foliage last year.  Soaker hoses wind through tomatoes and potatoes on mostly separate lines.  I am trying a French variety of rhubarb Glaskins, from seed in the corner of the garden.

Getting it together at the new digs a little bit at a time

I have grown (and purchased) a boat load of plants to fill all the gaps at our new residence.  Last year during the growing season, we still lived in our primary residence that we own.  This year we live in what is the manager's house where I work.  The short story is that so much old plant material had to be removed to make facility updates possible that we are starting from scratch in all respects.

I missed my herb garden this spring when it was not out my back door to snip fresh chives or thyme.  I have no mint for those refreshing summer drinks.  I spent a chunk of change at one garden center that carries a nice variety of modesty priced herbs.  I had no prepared ground to put them in.  I knew that I was going to have to make a few raised beds over old shrub stumps.  I used my collection of cinder block which I used for plant shelving in past years to do just that.  I even put my soil/compost blend in the centers of the block for the annual herbs like basil.  I also have the aggressive growers like mint confined in these holes.  The thyme will have the opportunity to trail down the side.  I alternated annual and perennial herbs in case they successfully winter and start to overflow their cells.  I back dropped the garden with some old trellises for some tomatoes (grape and yellow Sungold cherry type) and cucumbers.  It also is a bit of a privacy screen from the work areas and shade for the hostas on the opposite side of the wall it parallels.  I will also get the strawberry planters in their tower again as that is still the most convenient and best option I have used so far for the Alpine variety I grow.  This also provides a bit of screening which makes the patio feel a bit more intimate in such a spacious environment.

 I have pulled out some old planters from the weeds and placed them around the greenhouses and residence again.  They will provide a nice working height for food crops and our stock plants that we propagate.  It took an operator and equipment to get them out, but I love these old planters that still have plates on them designating the business that sponsored them decades ago.  They ended up at the nursery and were used for a short time before being mothballed.  They really were in the weeds before being pulled out into the spotlight again.  I had to dig out a fair amount of weedy soil so that we can put in some clean composted soil in the tops  One pot is home to my small stature blueberry bushes.  It is easier to transform the soil to be acidic and boggy when it is confined to a limited area.

The compost also came in handy for hilling the potatoes.  Straw adds and extra layer of soil retention in which the potatoes can grow.  It took quite a bit of soil, but the compost farm is just 10 minutes away so another trip was made for the other areas.
In addition to all the new area I have for gardening at the new digs, we still own our home in the city.  It is only 15 minutes away, so checking in is not a huge deal.  However, my daughter and her husband are novice gardeners.  They need the instruction of what is a weed and what isn't.  They have never put trowel to dirt on their own.  I will have to guide them through the season so they can have the most success in their very large gardening environment.  I have not been there for over a month, so there is lots of work to do.
So here it is, three days since I started writing this.  I am finally finishing this in the early hours of my day since I had to let my delivery drivers in for a 6 AM flower drop.  My days start early and end well after my hourly employees go home.  There is a lot of ground to cover in a day, and the work never ends.  Other than the regular frustrations of running a farm, I could not be happier with where I am.