ancona
Praying Mantis
The spring garden is shaping up nicely. I have a couple of my commercial projects guys preparing the garden to accept a shit-load of seedlings because we have a four day window between jobs, and there is nothing else for them to do anyway. We're augmenting the soil with aged mushroom compost and fish emulsion, then using geotextile to hold back the weeds. I like this stuff because it will last four or five seasons before degrading in to uselessness.
I'm hoping the berry canes we planted last fall come to fruit this spring so we can make some preserves. I really enjoy berry preserves on homemade bread!
The last of the eggplants came out of the garden yesterday and we're giving most of them away, since we're all sick and tired of them [we over-planted them by around 100%]. The homeless shelter is getting about a bushel of them, along with five quarts of our tomato sauce and a pound of elephant garlic. Those guys really like us because we donate hundreds of pounds of fresh produce each year, and because our produce is organic, it actually tastes like something. Our celery is five shades darker green than store-bought, and has a rich, powerful flavor. Our radishes are hot as fire and our herbs are awesome as well.
We're getting better and better at this food growing thing, with each harvest more bountiful than the last. I set aside a little corner of the plot this year [around 1,200 s.f.] to try my hand at French intensive planting again. We'll till down extra deep to open up the soil, then plant four times as much as we should in a very small area. The idea is that if you till deep and maintain aeration through the season, then fertilize liberally with fish emulsion through the growing season, the roots grow straight down, instead of clumping near the surface, which allows more dense planting.
We tried this with raised beds and it didn't work out so well, because we didn't maintain deep aeration, therefore we choked our plants out and had a crappy harvest. Well, that was three years ago and we've since learned quite a lot, so we are more hopeful this time.
For those of you who live down south like me, the mild winter has allowed our soil to stay warmer than usual so it's probably safe to go ahead and get plants in the ground. this will give us the advantage of being able to harvest and can food well ahead of the dog days. Late July, August and September are brutal here, so we don't plant or try to raise veggies during the worst of the summer.
This season we will do a lot more drying than last, with tomatoes high up the list. I want to try sun dried tomatoes packed in olive oil with various combinations of herbs, as well as dried celery and dried herbs.
I'll update this post as the season plays out.:wave:
I'm hoping the berry canes we planted last fall come to fruit this spring so we can make some preserves. I really enjoy berry preserves on homemade bread!
The last of the eggplants came out of the garden yesterday and we're giving most of them away, since we're all sick and tired of them [we over-planted them by around 100%]. The homeless shelter is getting about a bushel of them, along with five quarts of our tomato sauce and a pound of elephant garlic. Those guys really like us because we donate hundreds of pounds of fresh produce each year, and because our produce is organic, it actually tastes like something. Our celery is five shades darker green than store-bought, and has a rich, powerful flavor. Our radishes are hot as fire and our herbs are awesome as well.
We're getting better and better at this food growing thing, with each harvest more bountiful than the last. I set aside a little corner of the plot this year [around 1,200 s.f.] to try my hand at French intensive planting again. We'll till down extra deep to open up the soil, then plant four times as much as we should in a very small area. The idea is that if you till deep and maintain aeration through the season, then fertilize liberally with fish emulsion through the growing season, the roots grow straight down, instead of clumping near the surface, which allows more dense planting.
We tried this with raised beds and it didn't work out so well, because we didn't maintain deep aeration, therefore we choked our plants out and had a crappy harvest. Well, that was three years ago and we've since learned quite a lot, so we are more hopeful this time.
For those of you who live down south like me, the mild winter has allowed our soil to stay warmer than usual so it's probably safe to go ahead and get plants in the ground. this will give us the advantage of being able to harvest and can food well ahead of the dog days. Late July, August and September are brutal here, so we don't plant or try to raise veggies during the worst of the summer.
This season we will do a lot more drying than last, with tomatoes high up the list. I want to try sun dried tomatoes packed in olive oil with various combinations of herbs, as well as dried celery and dried herbs.
I'll update this post as the season plays out.:wave: