The fall garden

[ancona]

We're getting ready to start seeds for the fall garden this weekend. I have a thousand dixie cups cut and ready. We will start a little alter this year because we're forecast to have a later start to the cold spells, giving me more time with moderate temps to warm temps than usual. If all goes well, by the middle of September we'll be hardening off our little starts and dropping them in the soil. right now, we're amending with hot manure and a mix of "black cow" and oak leaves [to increase acidity] since we have such sweet soil. I want to plant the whole site this fall since it's not so miserable to work outside in the fall, but we'll see what everyone has to say.

This year, I want to do more cucumbers and more melons, just to test out the new amendment composition.

 

[Jay]

We have had a garden going for several months now (maybe 4). All the fruit trees failed with the exception of one pear tree. Two peach, one plum and one nectarine were covered with flowers and bees, so I know they were getting pollinated (last year we got 10 five gallon buckets of plums from our one, thirty foot tree). Late freeze took out all of Burnet and most of Texas (Fredericksburg lost all their peaches). When we bought this house fifteen years ago I started a large asparagus bed, but I quit watering it the last two years and it went to hell. Cleaned out the weeds and bought fifty crowns from Stark and we're starting over this year, might have asparagus next year. Bing has been getting this many long beans every day since spring. (She sells our Asian stuff to the local Asian restaurants). The squash was pretty much a failure, mildewed cause of the eight inches of rain all at once. The red skinned/white flesh sweet potatoes have gone NUTS and covered half the front yard. We'll probably get hundreds of pounds of them. Ampalaya and Opo producing the usual. Got about a bushel of tomatoes (I don't eat tomatoes much) and they are setting again for the fall.








this is what we grew in town. We also started a garden out in the country, had to truck in soil cause there wasn't any. (at our doomstead). It went fine until the cows figured out how to knock down the barbed wire fence...

 

[Jay]

some more garden pics:
purple potatoes from last year:

okra, tomatoes. The okra is about six feet high now, producing well.



a salt rifle


shot pattern of a salt rifle (fired into aluminum foil)

 

[Jay]

I grow plumeria for a hobby. (can't have ALL doom, need some beauty also).







my now eleven year old sitting in the trunk of a plumeria tree (notice the flowers on the ground, the smell was awesome)

 

[ancona]

Holy Cannoli! Those beans are mad huge! What type are they?

That looks like an awesome garden brother, do you produce enough to sell any appreciable quantity? Those melons look pretty awesome as well.

 

[Jay]

Holy Cannoli! Those beans are mad huge! What type are they?

That looks like an awesome garden brother, do you produce enough to sell any appreciable quantity? Those melons look pretty awesome as well.

the beans are called asparagus beans or yard long beans. They are available everywhere. They come in different colors also.

http://www.kitazawaseed.com/seeds_yard_long_bean.html

unlike American beans, they produce from last frost to first frost. The heat doesn't bother them. (they sell the seeds in the big box stores on the seed racks, you don't have to buy them online). They taste just like regular green beans.

Bing sells the asian stuff to the local Asian stores. Plus trades (2 dozen doughnut for a handful of long beans). (Cambodians own the local doughnut place)). We grow ampalaya (bitter melon) and Opo squash
http://recipes.wikia.com/wiki/Bitter_melon
http://recipes.wikia.com/wiki/Opo_squash
there is a fairly large asian community here (189 filipina in the census ten years ago). This is a town or 5000, but they look like mexicans and no one even knows they are here.

Then we grow a lot of other stuff, like lemon grass.

The fall back garden was a pretty dismal failure this year, though. Also, three of the sheep died (Barbados sheep). Parasites.

Its getting to be more and more an act of faith to say "there's always next year".

edited to add, Talong (Ping Tong or Asian eggplant was a failure this year also. We usually grow a LOT of it, but where I planted it didn't get enough (full) sun.
http://www.evergreenseeds.com/chinegpintun.html