Raab Park update

Last March, I mentioned that Cheryl, as part of her Master Gardener activities, volunteers at Frank Raab Park up in Poulsbo. They have a wonderful children's garden, consisting of some really great vegetable patches, those hoop houses, pole bean teepees, etc. And those Master Gardeners really do have green thumbs...so far this summer, 170 pounds of produce out of this garden have been donated to the Fishline food bank. Nice job!

Pretty as a turnip

Or a fig!

Plot O'Plenty

The string beans may yet force us to buy a chest freezer this year.

The potatoes are mostly still in the dirt, but there's plenty of them too. Anyone know the best way to store them?

Still picking and eating bags and bags of spinach, kale, chard, mizuna and endive.

You say tomato...

Summer finally arrived - a week of 80 degree days in September will ripen some tomatoes, yesiree.

Last of the peas

Although we pulled the peas out a few weeks ago at The Plot, the ones in my front yard were still going strong. You'd think it would be too warm in August, but the weather remains cool - there haven't been too many days above the mid-70's. I finally pulled them out today, though, so here's my final harvest. Goodbye peas. Our snow peas and sugar snap peas were both delicious and very fruitful; next year I would like to try shelling peas also.

Sorry, I only had my Droid camera today.

I love August

Lotsa beans

Hey, I better freeze some of these. Am I supposed to blanch them first?

Our first potatoes

Desiree and Red Gold

Who says you can't grow peppers here?

The moment we've all been waiting for

Z U C C H I N I !

What happens in August?

Let's see...something new: we have one good-sized pepper and some summer squash coming on. The broccoli is gone, but we have spinach we can eat now, with other greens plus broccoli raab not far behind. We pulled the peas out, and a couple of cucumbers are ready to climb up the newly-empty trellis. Here and there, we are eating carrots, turnips, beets and parsnips. And a whole week of warm weather is in the forecast. Stand back....three tiny tomatoes on my porch are showing some color.

Melanie visits the garden!

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Lunch

From the garden:

* Baby candy-stripe beets
* Snow peas
* Radishes
* Endive and baby beet greens





Plus yogurt/chicken/onion/cucumber salad

Mid-summer progress report

Our garden is providing us with food.



The beans are climbing.


The potatoes look incredible - I'm guessing we should be able to harvest small ones soon?


The broccoli heads are small, but yummy.


We've done succession plantings of most things: carrots, broccoli raab, pac choi, spinach, turnips, beets, radishes, parsnips, endive. Some from starts, some from seeds. We discovered that our long rows (the 30 ft length of the plot) were hard to manage, so we planted some of the new ones across the plot, from the edge to the path. We planted some of the more tender greens at home on our porch in pots, where we can hopefully keep a closer eye on them and have a better chance of keeping the slugs at bay. The snow peas and snap peas are still producing and have been excellent and pest-free. Leeks and parsnips have yet to be harvested, but turnips, beets and carrots have been sampled.

Enemy #1

"Slug damage is greatest in cool, moist weather or when young plants are small and tender." Think maybe they could be a problem for us?

Slugs have a job, and that job is to help in the composting cycle. In addition to eating our tender greens - they especially love our pac choi and spinach - they eat dead leaves, fungus and decaying vegetable material. Slugs are an important part of the ecosystem, and we are all about supporting the ecosystem. Nevertheless, I have come to HATE slugs and THIS IS WAR.

Suddenly, our Plot's location next to the well-managed and very active community compost pile seems less than ideal. They are sliming their way across the 18 or so inches between the compost pile and Plot #14. Why should they eat that dead, decaying stuff when they can feast on the lovely and delicious smorgasbord in our garden? I read that each slug has both male and female reproductive organs, meaning that all mature slugs can lay eggs, up to 400 per year. Eggs are laid in small groups of 3 or 4, or as many as 30 or 40. Eggs are round or oval, about 1/8 to 1/4 inch in diameter and colorless to milky white. They can begin to damage plants immediately upon hatching. Eeeeek.

We've used a lot of Sluggo, but are not sure how much it is slowing them down. Sluggo is a fairly non-toxic bait based on iron phosphate. It keeps slugs from feeding and they begin to die within a few days. We also tried beer, which supposedly attracts and then drowns them, with limited success. Diatomaceous earth seems to work, but only as long as it is dry. Next, we are going to surround the Plot with strips of copper. I'll let you know how it goes.

Garden Art

Unbeknownst to me, Mark had donated a pair of my dad's sturdy footwear to the Children's Garden in Poulsbo for a garden art project. Is this something Pete and Wilma would have considered a good use of an old shoe? Heck yes. I'm pretty sure they are smiling about it right now.

Celebrating Solstice

I have mixed feelings about summer solstice. Although it is touted as being the first day of summer, it seems to me that it is more accurately the middle day of summer, since tomorrow the days start getting shorter. Already. Already? Really? We are expected to celebrate THAT? Well, in any case, here on Bainbridge Island we've had two gloriously sunny days in a row, so we are feeling pretty optimistic about the days ahead.

It's a good time to reflect on our garden experiences thus far.

Biggest success: Pac choi and broccoli raab
Most miserable failure: None yet!
Biggest mystery: Why our broccoli seems uninclined to form heads
Biggest pest: Slugs!
Most amazing: Snow peas appearing from nowhere every day
Notes for the future: smaller plantings, more successions (too much broccoli raab, mizuna and pac choi all at once), add sand to root vegetable area, plant the rows across rather than lengthwise, putting more space between rows of different veggies, and more intense slug warfare.

Here's that headless broccoli:



In our second plot, we planted peppers, squash and beans. We bought the pepper starts at the nursery (very iffy in our climate but we have to try) and Cheryl started the squash and beans on her front porch:





The broccoli raab is gone now and the mizuna is bolting and will be pulled soon. We'll plant more of both in August to see if we can get a fall crop. The mizuna:

What a way to spend my birthday

At the new plot, we mowed down the weeds, applied a citrus/clove oil spray, a layer of cardboard, a pickup load of dirt from the dirt store, and then some soil fabric. Just let those weeds try to get through all that. We plan to do some peppers and basil here.



The bounty continues, and summer doesn't arrive until next week. We are eating LOTS of greens, let me tell you. Potatoes soon, from the looks of it.

Look what we're missing

In our absence, Cheryl and Grover have single-handedly put the second set of rings on the potato beds (remember, we're growing them vertically). They have picked kale and spinach. They have planted cucumbers and beans. They have started more seeds in the cold frame.

Just look at this garden!!!

















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Location:Look at what we're missing

Produce progress

Not bad for May - maybe we didn't jump the gun after all.


Potatoes o'plenty (and that volunteer rhubarb):

Location:Texas Springs Rd,Death Valley,United States

Expansion plans

This plot - #10 - became available. Should we take it???




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So good!

I almost wish we weren't running around Oregon in our van - we're missing out on some big harvests! Thanks Grover and Cheryl for the great photos and for taking good care of the Plot!











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Location:County Road 40,Dayville,United States