E3

Self Production: My Summer Garden

May 22, 2009.

It has been a slow start. Because I’m not using the same plot of land that I used last year, and the new plot is virgin soil, I have had to till the whole thing and manually remove huge chunks of sod. It has been a pain! Hopefully I will have plants in the ground soon.

May 28, 2009.

It is May 28th, we had a frost 4 days ago. No wonder people in Vermont say don’t plant your garden until the first of June. I didn’t know this old rule of New England, and most of my tomatoes that I started a month ago indoors died in the frost. Not to worry, I went to our local nursery and picked up a few baby plants. 3 days later they are all doing well, spreading their roots, and adapting (hopefully) to the poor soil quality of the spot I chose for my garden. Speaking of soil quality, my choices were limited for where I could put my garden, so I chose the one that made the most sense placement wise, not soil-wise, hopefully that works out.

So, what are you looking at here? On the left are tomatoes, about 5 different varieties of heirloom and beefsteaks. The fencing you see with the 4 black poles is for sugar snap peas. Tucked around the sugar snaps and tomatoes are red onions (too small to see). The little plants in front of the poles are 3 different varieties of hot peppers. The empty area to the left of the peppers is swiss chard. In front of the swiss chard are water melons, and to the right of the water melons, where it is still just soil, are summer squash.

I planted melons last year and had no luck with them. These are yellow fleshed water melons which some local farmers grow around here, so maybe they will do better. The peppers are new to me all around. I have never grown them in or outdoors. I planted Habanero, Poblano, Ho Chi Minh, and red bells.

If you looked carefully, you might be asking why the soil looks so different in each row. Well, the ground in the spot I chose is very clay-y. Extremely quick draining, and probably not very nutritious. So I have been experimenting with soil that is available to me in each row to see how the plants respond. The dark black soil clumped up around the tomatoes is actually rotten deer manure. (My landlord raises deer) The middle row, where the chard is planted is soil from under apple trees in my yard (I figured it would be nutrient rich) and the brownish soil where the melons are is potting soil that I had left over from indoor house plants.

Left to plant is corn, zuchs, broccoli, salad greens...

Some things I’m committed to doing differently this year.

Stay on top of the weeds!

Keep on (organically) fertilizing throughout the summer.

Thin out the chard and broccoli earlier than last summer.

updates and pictures to come.

June 22nd.

Things are finally beginning to take off. Other than the peppers, everything is doing great. The first tomatoes are coming in, the potatoes have exploded the last few days, the chard is making progress, beats are coming in......It was a slow start, but things are coming together. The soil is really junk and I can already tell i didn’t loosen up the dirt deep enough around the plants. I also should have tilled in more compost and organic matter into the soil earlier in the season. Oh well! It’s still early, and I added more compost to the ground today. I plan on keeping up on the adding of organic material to help not only with this season, but also to ready the soil for next year, my last year here.

Below is the wide angle view of the garden. The three small photos are: baby sugar snap peas beginning their climb, 3 rows of heirloom tomatoes with chard in front, and lastly, and close up of an early tomato growing in.

2009

Sunset, looking west from my garden, and earlier in the day....Zoe sucks at posing for me, but she’s still cute.

July 6, 2009

The plants are growing! We have had non-stop rain for a good week now and the plants have responded.

From left to right: potatoes grow in and are about to flower; swiss chard begins to tower over the grass; some sort of squash/zuch grows in with marigolds planted to deter bugs; 3 rows of the second round of late summer lettuce grows in; the sugar snap peas continue to climb, and tomato plants explode with the rain.

July 26, 2009

It’s high summer. My garden has exploded as a result of weeks of endless rain and now a few days of bright bright sun. Everything is blooming and many things are ripening. While I have been picking chard and lettuce for a while, today I finally picked tomatoes, green beans, and LOADS of zuchs. The grass is making a comeback, but I’m going to go at it hard later today and try to fight back. Other than that, I refuse to take pictures of the garden until I have it under control with weeds, but here are some pictures of my rewards. :)