Peppers and Green Beans, Oh MY!!

 

Yes, I guess you could say, with these last few posts I have been tooting my own horn with the pictures.  But, I know if you are here looking, you are interested, and happy for me.  SO thank you for stopping by and leave a comment for me of how your garden is doing.

 

 

 

I know that the seeds I got this year were, Sweet Cherry Peppers, from two different places and California Wonder, which was to be an orange bell pepper.

 

I have no idea where the yellow ones came from.  They are small, like the cherry peppers, but they have more of a bell shape.

 



 

 

 

Here are some of the beans that actually made it into the basket.  I have a four-legged who will bark continuously until I feed him some.  Well, more than some.  It seems like one for me and one for him some days, he loves them that much!

 

 

 

 

I know the green ones are just not ripe California Wonder Orange tomatoes, but I picked them because I noticed some damage on one, that I think was done by earwigs and I didn't want to risk leaving more to be their dinner instead of mine.

 

 

Carrots!

 

We've got carrots!  Four different kinds of carrots!  I am so pleased.

 

 

 

 

 

If you've been following my blog at all, you know that DH made, what we call, "the trough" last year for me to plant in this year.  The depth is perfect for carrots and it would keep them above the ground so I wouldn't have to worry about carrot root fly getting them.  Plus, since the trough is on our deck, I don't have to worry about the garden rabbit getting them either.

 

 

 

 

These carrots are from the second thinning that I have done.  They are small still.  Most of them just one to three inches long.  But very nice shape and the colors are great.  I just wish my picture taking skills were better!

 

The white ones are the most fun.  People don't realize that carrots come in colors, let alone that they can look so lovely.  But the taste!  You have never tasted a carrot until you've grown them yourself.

We've moved the butterfly bushes

 

Well, it had to be done.

 

We moved the remaining three butterfly bushes.

 

I had heard that they could be invasive.  Wasn't exactly sure HOW invasive.

 

They are SEED invasive!

 

We have removed hundreds of small plants.  Many of them had grown very well where they fell and I know that I will now have seven years of pulling them out from where they fell last fall.  I can not let them to continue to grow where I had planted them as they were not in the appropriate place for being a seed invasive plant.

 

So, they were drastically cut back, dug up and replanted to the side yard and now it doesn't really matter how many seeds fall.  I just hope they will grow as well where we have planted them as the seeds grew where we didn't want them.

 

Another lesson learned.

The summer is coming to an end

Wow, I haven't been on here since spring. Can't believe how time goes by so quickly.

A lot has happened in the gardening department.

The gutter garden that DH built last fall has worked out splendidly.  I would recommend to anyone who has limited space to check into making one to grow salad greens.  I can not get over how much we harvested and replanted twice already this season.

 

 

I wish the pictures were a bit better, so you could really see how well the lettuces grew in the gutters.

In this next picture, you get just a small glimpse of how well the beans did growing up the netting on the other side of the gutter garden.  We are still harvesting beans from the original planting.  Sylvester has eaten most of the right off the vine/bush.  But I have managed to put away quite a few quart bags into the freezer.

 

 

Along the house, in the shade, you can see the tomato plants that I grew from the seeds our son gave us from the plant he was given last year from a friend who grows a heritage tomato, for which we have no name.  Pictures to follow of how and what the tomatoes look like.  They are super meaty.

 

Here is an early season picture of the hugel bed we made in the fall.  The five different kinds of blueberry bushes have been planted.  All the rest of the plants have been grown by me from seed.  The marigolds grew huge, too big really and I've cut them back a few times.  The picklers did wonderfully.  I am not entirely sure how many pint jars and spaghetti jars of refrigerator pickles I made and gave away.  Enjoyed by all.  I felt badly about having to pull out the plants just before vacation, but I knew too many would go to waste while we were gone.

 



 

 

These are just a few of the Daikon radishes I had planted from seed up in the hugel.  The leaves on them were a great addition to the compost pile and two friends really enjoyed the

 radishes.

 



 

 

I hope to post some more about my garden adventures in the coming weeks.

 

I hope that you will come back to visit and see how well I've done and what I've learned.

 

Leave a comment to let me know you were here.



Garden Wisdom

When I decided that I really wanted to make a good effort at growing a garden, I decided that I needed to know as much as I could to grow the best I could.

Now, I love the Internet, and I probably spend more time than I should on it, but to me, it's like having a library in my home and I LOVE that.  Sad to say though, I haven't been to my library in years, but that's another story.

Anyway, I found a few books, that I actually did purchase and this is one of them.

"Garden Wisdom and Know How: Everything You Need to Know to Plant, Grow and Harvest"

It is from the Editors of Rodale Gardening Books, of which I get the Organic Gardening magazine.  Made here in the United States.

The only thing that I don't like about the book is the print size.  As you can see, the book is rather large, it contains a lot, but the print is small.

There are 10 chapters in the book and I have found a number of items in the book that have been helpful with my garden this year and I have not completed reading it.

The first chapter, Getting Started, is 74 pages long and it talks mostly about learning the zone you live in and composting.  Growing your soil.
I have learned a lot from just one chapter of this book and I am reading into the next chapter now, which is "Gardening Techniques and Tricks".

Do you have a favorite, go to, gardening book?

Hugelkultur --- What?

I have been searching the internet for information on gardening, organically.

Isn't it great to have a computer and internet access?  I was one of those kids who always had my nose in a book, usually from the library.  This is just great, I can go to look up anything at anytime of the day or night!  However, it can suck a lot of time out of my day, so I have to use my online time wisely.

I came across some youtube videos on Hugelkultur.  It's a German word.  It's spelled a few different ways, but all means the same.

I watched about Sepp Holzer.  Very inspiring.  Made me want to book a trip! (I don't like to fly!!)

The Hugelkultur website by Paul Wheaton is very helpful to understand the process of it all.

I have very little flat ground to work with.  We live on a steep hill.  Terracing is not really an option.  There is no way to get land moving equipment up into our back yard, and after putting in our raised bed garden this year, there's got to be a better way!

 But when I looked up Hugelkultur, I thought this could be something I could do that would help me to "grow" a flat area.

I decided where I wanted to put my hugel and what I wanted to plant. Blueberry bushes!


As you can see in this first and second photo, I first put down a layer of cardboard, then we used cut birch we had in our yard from a spring storm. Birch decomposes rather quickly as far as trees go.

 

 

Next, we purchased some straw at a local farmers market and I put a nice layer of that on top of the birch and then I watered a bit.

Next I started to mix peat moss, with locally made compost, PLUS I was able to get some coffee grounds from the local Starbucks.  I then have been mixing 5 gallon pails of it and spreading it across the top of the straw, being sure that I water every other day or so to keep things moist.

In these next two pictures, you can see a bit of the slope I am dealing with in our yard.  This end corner will need to be made deeper as I go so that it will help to level off the slope.

Things I have bought so far were the four bales of straw, peat moss and some mushroom compost to add in to the mix of things.  The peat moss is important because it will help to make the new soil acidic which is what the blueberries like.

I'm very pleased with the progress, though I would like to get another layer of straw on and then a layer of coffee grounds.  I would also like to hope getting in a planting of some peas to help fix some nitrogen into the soil, but I am not sure I will get to do that before the truly cold weather comes.

If you have any thoughts, I'd love to hear them, please leave a comment.
Until next time,
GROW where you are planted.