rainbow gardener's 2017 gardens

[applestar]

Loving the progress reports and photos. You really have a lot of food growing very effectively.

[rainbowgardener]

[KitchenGardener]

What a beautiful photo!

[SQWIB]

Awesome harvest.

[applestar]

Yeah it's like an autumn table decoration right there.

[rainbowgardener]

Another kind of harvest:

I've been gathering and harvesting lots of herbs lately. So far there's sage , rosemary , thyme (but no parsley), basil, oregano , lavender , lemon balm, tarragon , spearmint. And I'm not done yet.

[rainbowgardener]

replanting! Need to get some new pictures soon.

I'm in the process of pulling all the rest of the summer stuff, since we had a killing freeze. So the eastern most of my square of veggie beds, which most recently had tomatoes, peppers, and beans, has been all cleared and weeded, new compost added (and I let the chickens churn the compost under*), and replanted. It has a row of garlic down one edge, a wide row of cabbage seed in the middle, then a row of carrot seed and a row of peas on the other edge where they could grow up the fencing. I'm using up all my old seed, so I don't know what the germination rate will be, but at least I can start fresh with new seed in spring.

The 4x4 in the middle had a row of carrot seed planted in late winter, then it had corn and squash, late summer it also had tomatoes and peppers and beans. Now I planted it half with chard seed and half with chinese cabbage seed.

I have three more of these beds to finish. The quarter circle bed has a thriving group of broccoli plants 6-8" tall and some kale. Still want to plant some lettuce in there.

We are eating spinach and chard out of the bed that used to have potatoes and broccoli.

This is what succession planting looks like (in warmer climates).

* The chickens do a great job of this. Not only is everything well mixed, but the particle size is broken down until it is finer and softer than potting mix. Their pay is that they do eat some of the earthworms and other detritovores out of it, but they also eat weed seeds. I just have to be sure to get the bed fenced in again, so they don't eat the seeds I plant.

[rainbowgardener]

Everything has been weeded out, more compost added, replanted for winter . Broccoli in the quarter circle bed is just about ready to start making heads. We are eating chard , kale, and spinach . One of the beds has baby broccoli plants in it. Everything that looks like bare dirt has seeds planted in it: more chard , kale, broccoli and spinach as well as cabbage, Chinese cabbage, carrots, peas, garlic, lettuce (there's more beds not shown). It's all sort of an experiment. Last year I was still building garden beds and never planted a winter garden. So I don't really know what will work and what won't.

[rainbowgardener]

Yay!! Lots of the seeds I planted have sprouted, so I have lots and lots of tiny baby seedlings of kale, cabbage, chard ....