Garden Update 2010

What a difference a month makes! Dolly is now surrounded by lush green growing things while a scant month ago she was surrounded by dull brown earth. Side Note:Funny thing about Dolly, everyone loves her! My neighbours all have made a point to tell me wonderful she is and I've had more that one tourist stop and take pictures of her!

Back to the garden topic. Unfortunately, it isn't as good as I made it sound. My garden was very late into the ground and that is only one of the issues. I'd say in the five or six years I've had a garden here, this is the worst one yet. Which is surprising because last year, it was terrific! There's so many problems that I have to make a list:

• Carrots. By far the biggest disappointment. I planted them in the area I let go fallow last year. This area was totally built up with compost, rabbit manure and worm castings so I was expecting great things. I planted 6 packets of seeds and the result may-be 10 carrot tops in the whole area. I have no idea why. By the time I figured my carrots were a no-show (I kept hoping they'd pop up), it was practically mid-July. So I re-planted in another area of the garden. I decided to get baby carrot seeds because their grow time to maturity is faster. They took their sweet time but they are growing now. I was talking to my neighbours about this and some of them have wonderful carrots and others have the same problem I did. One woman actually had to re-plant three times. Next year I'll put the carrot/bean combo in the lasagna garden. The beans I planted with the carrots, while a little sporadic (something likes to eat the occasional bean plant right down to the nub when they are very, very young seedlings) are doing fine.
• Corn. As already mentioned in a previous post, the corn seeds were raided. When I replanted them, I sowed very heavily and I planted the seeds deeper than usual. They did come up, again sporadically, and much less than expected considering how many were planted. I ended up transplanting some of the baby corns I had planted for shade in front of the chick run. I think the corn will be late but I should get some.
• Snow Peas. They're just plain late because of the corn. I do the three sisters method of planting snow peas with the corn. The corn stalks provide natural trellises for the snow peas to grow on and, in return, the snow peas attach nitrogen to their roots to give the corn extra nutrients. But I have to wait until the corn is about 4 - 6 inches high before planting the peas. So while everyone else is picking the fresh tender pods off their plants, I just look at my stubby 4 - 6 inch plants and sigh.

But all is not all wreck and ruin in the garden. My cucumbers are almost ready to be picked. The lettuce and beets are lovely. All my herbs; dill, basil, parsley and cilantro, are great. The onions are robust and the tomato plants have green tomatoes all over the place. I'm going to put the tomato/basil combo in the built up area next year and see what happens. I also have my 'pop ups' all over the place, a little dill and tomatoes in the most unlikely places. Believe it or not, I even have some potatoes springing up, from what I believe to be potato peels and didn't compost fast enough. Whether or not I get potatoes from them is yet to be seen. All my pumpkins this year, except for the naked pumpkin, are from pop ups. I didn't plant zucs because I still have a load frozen from last year. My raspberry crop was terrific!

Speaking of compost, that might have been pushed a little faster that usual because I was so late. I won't do that again. Another thing is that the garden never got its boost of comfrey tea because the barrel I use is being used elsewhere this year.

Things to do for next year:

• Row covers for the corn and may-be the beans.
• Barrel for comfrey.
• Get Dolly up before planting the corn.
• Get off my butt and plant earlier.
• Keep the faith.