So it's mid season... I harvested all the rest of my mixed lettuce, about half a bushel from my 4x8 raised bed (and we've been eating and eating it!). Left a few of the most bolted ones to go to seed, so hopefully it will start coming back on it's own. The spinach was bolted awhile ago and some of it is going to seed too. Note for next year - look for heat resistant spinach varieties; spinach never lasts very long here. Swiss chard is all that is left in that bed, going strong. Leaving on vacation tomorrow. When I get back I will plant something else there.
Opened up the deer netting "cage" my tomatoes live in. Pulled the rest of the broccoli which isn't doing much any more. Harvested the side shoots and some leaves for salad/ greens. Weeded it out. It was mulched early in the season and this is the first time I have weeded it since then. Not a lot of weeds for being untouched for months. Harvested the rest of the garlic-- the heads are quite good sized, bigger than the heads the original cloves came from. Cut back the nasturtium and parsley that were in that bed - with all the rain, the nasturtium got huge this year. I've been putting nasturtium flowers and leaves in salads.
Brought out the worm bin, which has been sitting completely neglected in the basement since April. I got a bit creeped out when a couple black soldier flies appeared in my house, despite having diligently pulled out all the BSF larvae I could find from the worm bin. That and getting busy with spring in the garden and I just "forgot" about the worm bin in the back corner of the basement, never added any more food or did anything to it. I was worried that when I opened it, it might be nasty and full of flies. Not so! No flies, just earthworms, a few roly-polys, one empty snail shell. And like at least 2 maybe three gallons of wonderful worm casting compost. Great stuff, dark, moist, and very fine textured. There didn't seem to be any big worms in it, maybe the big ones starved to death, but it was full of little worms. So I top dressed tomatoes, peppers, and basil with worm castings.
Ordinarily this time of year, I would top dress with compost, but I'm about to build a new raised bed and saving the compost for it. So it was handy to have the worm castings. Cleaned out the bin and I guess I will start it up in the fall again. Maybe bake the dry leaves that I put in first to avoid critters? Do baked leaves smell as bad as baked dirt?
Weeding out the herb garden, that never got mulched and is pretty over grown. Otherwise just trimming back all the stuff that is getting weedy and overgrown, deadheading, keeping everything cleaned up...
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rainbowgardener
- Super Green Thumb
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- Location: TN/GA 7b
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rainbowgardener
- Super Green Thumb
- Posts: 25279
- Joined: Sun Feb 15, 2009 6:04 pm
- Location: TN/GA 7b
Yeah, bloomsdale longstanding spinach doesn't live up to its name around here. I'm thinking of putting some seeds down in the early winter to see if they come up early in the spring. The last time I tried a fall crop, it either wouldn't germinate or it bolted right away.rainbowgardener wrote:The spinach was bolted awhile ago and some of it is going to seed too. Note for next year - look for heat resistant spinach varieties; spinach never lasts very long here.
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rainbowgardener
- Super Green Thumb
- Posts: 25279
- Joined: Sun Feb 15, 2009 6:04 pm
- Location: TN/GA 7b