August 2009 Garden Notes

Starting tomatoes early and transplanting them under hoop houses in May worked great, except for the sunburn.

Next year, plant a sunflower next to each tomato as a living stake.

Next year, plant beans and corn earlier. Beans are not producing now, and they should. Plant beans with support structure...cow fence?

Plant squash and cucumbers from seed, in late May, perhaps under a garden blanket.

Plant potatoes in cages or something different. Do some more research. Straw didn't work so well.

Misty Morning Musings

Misty Morning

This is such an anticipatory time of year for me. Things change so quickly. I'm working on my Vegetable Plant, Transplant, Harvest Calendar right now. I really want to try to do more succession planting and plant more First time I've really tried to figure out exactly when to sow seeds directly and indo, plant starts, and harvest my produce. Next, I'll map out what should go where. The What Goes Where Map.

The Friday before President's Day weekend we had five cubic yards of top soil delivered and then spent the weekend and beyond spreading it over our asparagus bed and three vegetable beds, raising them all about six inches. I also top dressed the flower bed at the front of the garden, where I plant tall things like sunflowers to sort of shield the garden from the street.

Yesterday Mike and I discussed whether to put in a fence or irrigation system and agreed fence first. I initially thought of adding a three-foot-high picket fence, like the six-foot-high fence we have between the back yard and the side lot now. I wondering though if something different is in order for the garden fence. Bamboo? Willow? Something taller than three feet that doesn't block too much light?

For Spring 2005

• Plant only two cucumbers, burpless or English, encourage onto trellis
• Plant marigold seeds around tomato and pepper/eggplant beds early, before transplanting starts
• Plant shelling peas and sugar snap peas, use trellis
• Plant radishes and carrots
• Plant cabbage, cauliflower, bok choy early
• Plant sunflowers further apart; fertilize heavily
• Plant onions early