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rainbowgardener
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Re: rainbow gardener's 2017 gardens

I haven't updated this for awhile. My garden was looking so August-y. But I pulled some things, did a bunch of weeding, started replanting, the beans grew and filled in some. It still isn't looking lush like spring/ early summer, but not as bad.

overview:
garden overview.jpg
this bed had broccoli, kale and chard. Now there's beans in the back, tiny broccoli seedlings in what looks like bare dirt, and one very late planted summer squash, which is an experiment to see if maybe this late in the season the vine borers have gone away:
summer squash.jpg
The 4x4 did have carrots and corn. Now it has a thriving volunteer potato and a volunteer tomato (where the red spiral is) and a few carrots left and a couple bean plants.
beans and potatoes.jpg
Here's the two quarter circle beds. Squash is looking very sad and fungal, but still producing. In the middle where the corn used to be is more broccoli seeds. In the back bed you can see a lot of asparagus ferns and some strawberry. There's also rhubarb and artichoke in there.
squash and asparagus.jpg
I didn't take a picture, because it mostly looks like bare dirt, but the bed at the end of the deck that had potatoes and broccoli, is now planted with chard and spinach seeds, just starting to sprout. It has a few volunteer potato plants popping up, probably from tiny tubers that got left behind in harvesting the potatoes. I may not have to plant fall potatoes, they are planting themselves! :)

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rainbowgardener
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Still getting bell and hot peppers from my garden and a few tomatoes. Harvested the last of the spring carrots recently, a supermarket bunch worth. Got a few potatoes from one of the volunteer plants. Have harvested most of the winter squash, just a couple still going (the plants mostly died of powdery mildew). Biggest success story right now is the green beans--picked and froze a quart of them today and lots more still to come.

Peppers and green beans
peppers and green beans.jpg
Summer squash and green beans (this is the same bed that is shown in the quoted photo in Gary's July 17 post above, that had chard and kale and broccoli in it. Now it has baby broccoli in there, that will come into its own when the squash and beans are done. Succession planting!)
squash and green beans.jpg
late planted summer squash not being attacked by vine borers
summer squash.jpg
I have spinach, chard, and broccoli plants coming along and just planted lettuce seeds today.
Last edited by rainbowgardener on Thu Sep 28, 2017 2:49 am, edited 1 time in total.

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rainbowgardener
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And since woman does not live by veggies alone, here's a couple samples of what is still blooming in my garden

cypress vine (close relative of cardinal climber vine), butterflies and hummingbirds love it:
cypress vine.jpg
cypress vine 2.jpg
helianthus
helianthus.jpg

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rainbowgardener
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I will re-do this later to show the end of the season. But this is the progression of one bed, through the season so far. If I get it together, I will do one for each bed. Since I am terrible at keeping records, this will show me what my planting succession was
combined photo horizontal.jpg
(click to enlarge)

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rainbowgardener
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couple more updates:

this is the bed that had potatoes and broccoli in the spring. Now it has spinach and chard and some volunteer potatoes from what got left behind after harvesting the spring potatoes. We will soon be picking some greens.
spinach and chard 10-4-2017.jpg
this was the bed that had corn and squash. Now it has one last winter squash plant barely hanging in there, a circle of broccoli seedlings in the middle, some cabbage and kale along the straight edges (mostly not visible), and lettuce seeds that haven't sprouted yet along the outer curve.
broccoli & lettuce seed 10-4-2017.jpg

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

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rainbowgardener
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fall harvest.jpg

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KitchenGardener
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What a beautiful photo!

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Awesome harvest.

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

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rainbowgardener
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Another kind of harvest:
herb harvest.jpg
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.

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rainbowgardener
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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.

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rainbowgardener
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broccoli and kale.jpg
chard and spinach.jpg
chives and parsley.jpg
baby broccoli.jpg
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.

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



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