Thursday, August 30, 2012

Forgotten

Yesterday I wrote about what I'd been doing in the garden and I totally forgot that I planted some fall brassicas. I had a bed reserved for the quicker Asian greens and root vegetables. It has peas on one end of it. I planted one half of the bed up. Some Chinese cabbage, bok choy, Fun Jen, baby bok choy, radishes, and turnips. In a few weeks I'll plant up the other side.

I only remembered when my sprinkler decided to attack the bed. I put it on top of an upside down garbage can to make sure it gets up and over the row covers. Well it came off. I've never had that happen before. And sadly this bed was covered in Agribon. Oh how I hate how fragile Agribon is, but I only have enough of the better stuff to cover three half beds (currently covering carrots, chard/broccoli, and the earlier planted brassica bed). I cut out another section from somewhere else and did a little sewing to cover the hole.

Sadly that wasn't all the damage it did. The sprinkler fell into the bed and dug some holes in dirt and the newly sprouting plants. I tried to fix it up, but I don't know how successful I've been. If they are all dead in a week, I'll resow.

I don't know how well this bed will grow things in the fall. As you can see from the first photo which was taken at 2pm, the bed gets a lot of shade right now. It does get some decent morning sun and a tiny bit of afternoon sun, but at the height of the day it is in shade. I usually plant up my fall/winter Asian greens in the rock wall garden. It is the only place that gets decent sun during the day in winter. This year I'm going to do it in this bed and in the rock wall garden. I might get way too many greens, which is fine. Or this bed might not produce at all. It will be interesting to see. I'd much rather grow my fall/winter crops here. The section of the rock wall garden that I use has my zinnias and I hate pulling them out at the beginning of September. This year I'll wait until mid-September to do it. I've always thought I started a bit too early in past years. Even at the start of September some of the plants have time to bolt.

4 comments:

  1. Those setbacks are no fun. I hope all survive; sometimes things are surprisingly resilient. Some of my kale survived puppy investigation.

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  2. silly sprinkler! I hope they survive!

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  3. Daphne. This post is true gardening! Thanks. I experience what seems to me to be the same surprising, no, not surprising, bur rather agitating, half-successful, do-what-ya-can-with-what-ya-know-and-what-ya-got, hopefully-harvest-something results.

    We're presently wrestling it through with our late season lettuce planting, thinning carrots and the damn cat that's not just thinning, but rather destroying the carrots, because she thinks this particular bed of produce is for... At least she catches rodents!

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  4. I have had that same thing happen and it really is amazing how much damage a sprinkler can do in a very little bit of time. You sound quite handy as a repair seamstress! My garden is getting less and less sun with each passing day - both because of the shortening days (which is becoming noticeable now), but also because the sun is starting to be lower on the horizon so the afternoon tree sun blocking on several beds has increased.

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