Poor Slob Without A Name’s Blog

Fortunately, Will has picked up the slack and kept the plot going.  He cleared out the green beans, tomatoes, and cucumbers.  We still have some peppers growing so they will remain awhile longer.  We ripped out one wall that still had the busted rotting wood left by the previous occupant and installed a new plank to hold in the dirt and mark our border.  We will need to do this one more time along the edge where the peppers are once they are done producing.  Then our entire plot should be complete in terms of walls, boundaries, etc.  Will also removed some ugly, rusted, cage looking wire along the north side that was being used to let cucumbers and other climbing plants grow on, and replaced it with our bamboo trellises.  It is a much nicer look for sure. 

Last week we turned the soil over the course of a few days to get out any remaining roots from the tomatoes, pull up weeds, and prep the soil for planting our fall/winter crops.  Along the way we killed roughly 2 dozen grubs.  This is a task I hate doing.  For some reason it makes me squeamish and I try to hand off the little, fat white blobs to Will, but he no longer accepts them and has forced me to grow up a little and kill them myself.  I just hate the squishing noise often made when trying to burst them open with the edge of my shovel.  I can feel the tension of their skin trying to fight the pressure being applied by my garden tool, and release when their insides goo out.  Is this getting too graphic?  I think articulating it is helping me get over not wanting to do it.  I don’t know why it bothers me so much.  I kill other bugs all the time with no problem.

Anyway the plot is in prime condition to take on the new plants.  It looks pretty bare now, but soon enough it will be green and thriving again.  Now the only signs of life aside from the dwindling peppers are two Thai basil plants situated in opposite corners.  The bees love this plant and having bees in the plot is always welcome.  We have Brussel sprouts, celery, and 2 varieties each of broccoli and cauliflower in seedling pots in the green house.  REd onions are in a planter at home; once they sprout and grow a little we will transplant them.  4 or so heads of garlic were broken up and are soaking in a bowl of water on the kitchen counter.  Once they sprout we will plant those as well.  The plan with the garlic is to plant all the way around the outside of the 15′ x 15′ plot.  Will is hoping this helps keep pests at bay.  We will see if his idea works.  Even if it doesn’t we will have lots and lots of garlic to show for it.  We planted dragon carrots and chioggia beets over the weekend, along with  amarillo carrots and Parisian carrots on Monday.  The rain on Tuesday and Wednesday has made me a little nervous regarding Monday’s planting.  Hopefully it was not too much water and the seeds stayed put.  There is a possibility that they might have gotten washed away.  Little finger carrots, parsnips, rutabagas and golden beets still need to be planted.  Perhaps radishes too?  A neighbor at the garden gave us several little beet seedlings she had thinned out from her plot.  I am not sure if they will take, but hopefully they survive.  I am so looking forward to the fall/winter crops.  At least in my mind they will require less maintenance than the summer ones.  With the weather being cooler the soil will stay moist longer and with the coming rain nature will do some of the watering for us.  This will be great because soon it will be dark before I can even get there after work and I will be limited to going on the weekend.  It makes me a little sad to be there less, but we have so much new garden space to focus on at home; it is going to need some serious attention in the coming weeks.

This squash grew into the metal cage its vine was growing on and is now stuck around the metal. We are going to have to cut it apart to harvest it.

In the rest of the garden, Will has been called on by several of the in charge folks to help with various projects.  He is now officially a member of the tree committee, which I realize sounds sort of silly, but he does a lot of hard work with Gina and her trees.  Work that could not be done by others, like climbing up to the tops of the trees to pick fruit; fruit that otherwise would not get harvested and would become food for the birds or rot on the ground.  With this new distinction in our membership status we are relieved from attending the once-a-month clean up days, which are mandatory for regular members.  We – Will especially – put in much more time than the 1 1/2 hours required on those clean up days, so while we get out of coming to the mandatory day we are still earning our keep.  Recently we have harvested lots of pomegranates, a few star fruit, guavas, avocados and sapotes.  The pomegranates are incredible, despite the labor involved in attaining the seeds.  We might attempt to make jam out of them over the weekend, but I just enjoy snacking on the little gem like seeds. 

There is something very Suess-like about hanging out under a pomegranate tree.

3 pomes worth of seeds. Lots of work, but its soooo worth it.

What a pretty bowl of tropical fruit!

In addition to the plethora of fruit in season, we finally used our parsnips, which were harvested some time ago.  They sort of got lost in the shuffle when we moved, but the cooler weather and rain this week prompted us to make them into soup.  The parsnip-apple recipe we used was very basic and turned out very well.  I should have taken a photo I supposed, but really it just looked a lot like apple sauce.  The apples and parsnips complement each other oh-so-well and I am looking forward to making this again when the next round of parsnips is ready to be pulled up from the plot. 

If you read this blog you might remember we moved plots over the summer to a sunnier location.  Our old plot has not been reassigned and there are talks about turning the space into something different because growing there can be difficult with the huge pine tree looming overhead.  Will is trying to talk our garden master into letting us turn the space into a mushroom area.  He has done research and is presenting it to the powers that be.  It will take some work to build the mushroom boxes and money to buy the spores, which are not cheap, but it could potentially be a great project and use of the cool, moist soil under the large tree.  We have had a handful of morels pop up on us while we were still growing in that plot so we are convinced the mushrooms would be able to survive there.  The old plot still has two busted tomato plants that have not produced in a while.  They still had fruit on the vine when we moved so we left them, but now they are done.  However we haven’t pulled them out because a gigantic caterpillar has been munching away on what remains.  It keeps getting bigger and bigger every time we go check on it.  When we showed it to Gina and others, she wanted to kill it so it doesn’t lay eggs and make more of the plant eaters.  We refused and said we would kill it once it goes to cocoon.  Hopefully it doesn’t lay eggs before that?!  I should investigate.

Mr. Tomato Caterpillar

Its eye really creeps me out.

Phew, for initially stating the garden was on the back burner, perhaps we have more done than I realized.  It is just a slow process and has been broken up over many days and weeks.  Now comes my least favorite part… waiting for the seeds to sprout and the plants to grow.  I hate the pause between planting the seeds and when that first little hint of green comes pushing through the soil.  Until that happens… I will be not-so-patientially waiting.