Vegetable Gardening

[smilingcat]

Almost too late in season but managed to order three kinds of blueberries, Jubilee, O'Neal and Ozarkblue (in place of Southmoon). These are warm weather variety.

Also ordered Anne Yellow raspberry, tulameel (sp) raspberry and Ouachita black berry plants. Bit late to get any fruit this year but they should be set for next year.

Southern California is just too warm for stone fruit so have none. Instead we do have citrus trees.

We redid most of our garden so nothing looks established. bit strange to look at. Also about 5 years ago my collection of giant dahlia was wiped out. my mistake. and just today picked up three new varieties. Now I'll get to listen to one guy at my office "well my sunflower is much bigger than your dahlia" sheesh. Anyway, one variety of zuccini has set and probably ready to pick in about two more weeks. Green Zebra tomato has fruit set and first tomato should be ready in two to three weeks. Romas also has fruit set. Maybe I'll take a picture tomorrow and post.

Reading "Made from Scratch" by Jenna Woginrich. I'm just tickled pink by her writing. A young gal in her twenties decided to homestead of sort. Drives an old Subaru, her experience with chicken, bee keeping, three sheep... see coldantlerfarm.blogs.com Another book just for fun is "The Backyard Homestead" Carleen Madigan ed. bought it on advice from Amazon when I bought Made from Scratch. Just lukewarm on the second book.

Oh already pulled up two garlic heads, dried and cured. Need to start on heirloom variety of melons, and snow peas. Soo late.

[OakLeaf]

I use non-enclosed raised beds. Every year I till the whole patch, then dig out trenches/pile up soil in the beds.

It makes for a lot of work at the beginning of each season, but it allows me to till and amend the whole plot all at once and makes crop rotation easier. The way my yard drains, raised beds of one sort or another are a necessity.

I'm getting to a dilemma. I've put it off one more year but I'm going to need to make a decision. I've worked hard over the years to transform my plot from rocky clay to good loose topsoil. In the meantime, a nearby black cherry has worked just as hard to grow taller and taller and it's now shading a good third of my plot for most of the afternoons.

Move the plot? Or cut down the tree?

(Also, I set my tomatoes and peppers out yesterday, and now they've changed the weather forecast to call for patchy frost tonight. I wasn't planning on rolling out the row covers already. )



ETA: Lisa, after several frustrating years, I found the only thing that keeps groundhogs (aka woodchucks) out is electric fence. A small four-volt solar charger is plenty and not too expensive. One strand about three inches off the ground, one strand about eight inches above that with a ground wire between in case the raccoons try to climb it.

Eight feet of light poly netting with a string of twine on top is usually enough to keep the deer out.

You'd think these animals were starving, instead of having thousands of acres of pasture, woodlands and farm to graze. But no, they need my beans, tomatoes, greens, parsley and squash. All of them, if they can get them, and there have been years when they did.