So I don't really know where to start... I've been meaning to get this going for months now. We moved in to our new home February 23 2014. One of the big motivators of the move was to get out of the snow and garden. We had a blank canvas in the yard and started to dream. The Garden Fence went up in August and we didn't get the beds in till late August or early September...We did have chile peppers in pots and they did quite well last year. They produced a fair amount and we managed to keep the black chile alive over the winter in the garage. The beets survived the winter. We just harvested the last of them today. I learned the importance of thinning veggies. Some of the beets were good but mostly they were very tough and fibrous and woody.... They were definitely over crowded but came in a six-pack and were crowded and intertwined in the six pack before I planted them. I remember wondering about separating them but not feeling like i could do so without harming them. Live and learn!
The lettuce from seed did amazingly well and we are still harvesting heads now. A few sugar snap peas survived multiple frosts and are now producing again! The first frost was Sunday November 2 2014.... so far our last frost was April 7 2015.
We brought home chile peppers on April 2 and they got frost nipped before we could plant some of them (some were already in the ground and some were in pots. We started planting more chile peppers April 15 and now have an entire bed devoted to chile peppers - 18 plants 16 different varieties and a few cherry peppers in pots still looking for a home.
Chuck brought over his lovely tomatoes and planted them April 6th....they are all safely tucked into their walls of water. We have 12 of Chuck's tomatoes in the beds, plus one purchased sunburst gold and in a pot we have a patio tomato.
The orchard is doing pretty well. The brown turkey fig tree is recovering after being assaulted by a falling poplar limb which took of the couple of feet, crushed it's deer fencing and broke one of it's support stakes. This was in a big wind storm only a week or two before the fire. Which is an entirely different story. The leaf mulch and burlap wrap was very successful in protecting the fig tree from frost - although it was a mild winter with snow on the ground only once. The apricot tree had quite a bit of fruit on it which inexplicably disappeared some time ago when it was about a half inch long... I'm told it must have frosted and then fallen off. We did wrap this and the other trees in tarps when the cold snaps came after they began to flower and fruit. We must have missed one frost! The asian pear has fruit and looks quite happy. The white and yellow peach both have fruit which is growing but they look a bit troubled. The yellow peach in particular has ants and distressed looking leaves.... i suspect aphids or scale but have seen evidence of neither. I sprayed them all twice with that organic oil from Big Trees, but I think they are due for another. I also pulled all the dead leaves from the bases of the trees and found MANY earthworms This was back in January or early February.. very exciting. I fed them all in mid February - shortly after pruning them. I did take the deer fencing down a bit early... about a month ago. I hadn't seen any deer around here for quite a while and had been seeing them up above the airport so I figured I was safe.... until I came home to find the basil and tarragon and geraniums mowed and the peach and cherry tree showing signs of having been somebody's snack! The deer fencing went back up. It is probably safe to take the fencing down now but I'm a bit anxious and might leave it on another week or two... or maybe all summer?
This has been a good week. Wednesday, April 29, we started planting seeds... squash (zucchini, yellow straight, butternut, kabocha, acorn, spaghetti, green and yellow patty pan), pumpkin, lemon cucumber and sweet corn. We also got three fig slips ... these are from trees which produce the most lovely green figs with a fabulous pink flesh... we had a sample last fall. It is a little late for the slips but we have them in sugar water in the garage in a make shift green house and they were looking fabulous. I changed the water yesterday, Sunday May 3 and today the big leaves are wilting... that was forecast to happen and the baby leaves are still growing so fingers crossed they will begin to put our roots soon. I looked up various ways to get these to root and bought moss but they looked so happy where they were I figured I'd leave them alone for a bit.
ThursdayApril 30 we planted two more beds... one for greens with Chard, a spot for head lettuce which we will plant soon, arugula and mescalun mix. the other bed has carrots, radishes, rutabegas, red beets, chiogga beets and green onions.
Yesterday, May 3 we planted the Autumn Blaze Maple across the creek. It looks very happy!!! And makes us quite happy too!
The three Himalayan Pines went in over a month ago across the creek on the East side of the property and they are looking very happy and healthy!
Today... May 4 - I("m not going to say it again).... we walked over to the neighbors and adopted their leftover galvanized metal fencing material to make trellises. We assembled them, set up new mini soaker hose drip lines and planted Kentucky Blue Pole beans and sugar snap peas. it is a little late for the peas but I think they will do well. In a few weeks we will plant lettuce under these A-frame trellis's for a shadey later harvest (hopefully).
Did I mention the arugula and mescalun mix started sprouting yesterday?? Very exciting.. AND we saw our FIRST baby preying mantis of the season. Last year we watched hundreds of babies grow into gorgeous large and fierce preying mantises which hunted our nasty garden bugs quite successfully! What else... the brussel sprouts, cabbage and kalettes which we planted from starts in the fall struggled through the winter and a few bouts of intense aphids.... much spraying with the oil from the nursery and they simply bolted and withered... some died from aphids, some bolted and got bitter... the kalettes never produced their little heads.. I suspect they all would have benefited from a covering with greenhouse fabric. But then the bug issues would have been worse. We did put the plastic up on hoops over the chiles and they survived the most recent cold snaps. We also planted marigolds and basil amongst the chiles and tomatoes to help with bugs.
It is supposed to get into the mid thirties again this week so we will leave the plastic up over the chile peppers and the walls of water will stay on the tomatoes for another couple of weeks.
We have one empty bed, a little space in the second tomato bed, though that is filling up with mystery volunteers from the compost... these are either Armenian cucumbers, zucchini, spaghetti or acorn squash.....time will tell. We will also harvest the last of the lettuce and sugar snap peas from the Fall soon and have another bed.... Oh and I forgot the garlic, onion, leek bed.... not sure what is going on there. Is suspect a bit too much water but Jim thinks it needs Nitrogen....
Okay that is enough for today.... I've been meaning to start this for ages and hope to keep it somewhat current.
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