I’ve been enjoying a continuous stream of tomatoes, yellow squash, lettuce, arugula and cucumbers since early August. I’ve also had a few zucchini but not nearly as many as I would have liked. The same goes for bell peppers… I’ve gotten a few of those, maybe 10 or so but not as many as I would hope for. I’ve also been getting a good bit of basil for pesto and will be drying some too. Today I harvested black-eye peas, probably a half pound or so. My first attempt with those and a bit of an experiment planted very late so I’m very happy to get a crop. Next year I’ll definitely be planting them again but in much greater number and much earlier. I’ve also harvesting a small handful of potatoes, also an experiment. Many, many more of those will be planted next year.

I’ve also been foraging a couple of handfuls of kinda ripe Autumn Olive berries and eating them fresh every day for the past week. They are getting sweeter and are probably about ripe now… very tastey indeed! I may try to harvest a bucket of them for preserves or maybe pancake syrup.

Comfrey!!! I was disappointed that the packet of seeds (12 or so seeds) I planted only produced one plant but that one plant did very well this summer. A couple weeks back I harvested about half the leaves and put them in a bucket of water which yielded a nice, stinky bucket of tea which I’ve just applied to the remaining garden plants. Waiting to let it go to seed and then will harvest the remaining leaves. I’ll definitely be putting in comfrey clusters around the kitchen garden and forest gardens. A great plant!!

I’d have to say that I’m fairly happy with the garden given the lack of prep time and lateness of planting. I’m very happy with the results of the straw/cardboard sheet mulching. I should have a great compost pile (or 2 or 3) this fall and lots of leaves left over for more sheet mulching. Combined with the addition of chickens and many more comfrey plants next year I think we’re on our way to improved soil fertility.

Gas/oil used? Not much. We used the tiller for maybe 20 minutes and against my better judgement. I thought it would help us get the soil quickly loosened up for the tomatoes. Lots of rocks! I’ve never used a tiller until this year and I’ve confirmed that as a good decision. I finished the job by hand with a pitch fork and was much happier with the results. All future garden space will be prepared in advance using sheet mulch.

Cardboard and straw certainly require energy to obtain and the straw costs money. Most trips to get those ingredients involved the need to get other supplies as well so at least they were not special trips. Next year I’d like to try replacing all or part of the straw layer with leaves though I I’m not sure how well that will work out. Leaves are not so neat and tend to move around. I may use leaves as the bulk of cover and then a much thinner layer of straw on top just to tidy it up and keep the leaves in place. We’ll see.


Technorati Tags:
, , , , , ,
, , ,