It has been a good week for cleaning up the garden. Each day except Thursday I was out and cleaned up one full bed. I also got the morning glories cleaned off the compost pile. The above beds were done on Monday and Tuesday. I usually crop off the houses in the distance, but then people get shocked when they find out I live in an urban environment. This shows a little of where we live. My neighbors are pretty close. My last house had a half an acre mostly in woods. This one has 9000 sqft which is shared by two townhouses. Most of my garden is in the side yard. It abuts my neighbors driveway which comprises the whole of their side yard. Interestingly enough our side yard was fairly similar when we bought the house. We had to rip out driveway to put in part of the garden.
These two got done on Wednesday and Friday. Some is still left in the one bed as it is a cover crop of oats, peas, and vetch. It is patchy since I put it in as something was pulled out. The oats and peas will die over the winter and the vetch will get turned under in the spring. You can see in the background the tomato plant still in. I've got to pull that bed. Mostly it is random cilantro and mustards that are growing, but there is a little cover crop and some carrots.
I didn't think these carrots would have enough time/sun to produce. The sections near the fence get less sun than the section near the path. The trees and the neighbor's house shade it much earlier in the fall than the other side. But it is an experiment. I want to see how big they get. If they do fairly well I might be able to use the fence section for fall carrots if I get them in soon enough. My other option is to put some of the fence section in blueberries instead of veggies. They will do well with a little shade in the spring and fall. And I find that my area to grow things is just a little too large for vegetables. I'm allowing sections to be unproductive at times and I just don't care. That means I have too much space. I suppose this isn't a terrible thing. At my last garden I was always wanting more.
It makes it all the more impressive to me that your neighbors are so close! It gives hope to a fellow urban dweller that I might be able to have a wonderful garden one day (once I'm no longer in a 3rd floor condo without even a balcony!).
ReplyDeleteYou have done so much with your space. Thank you for your willingness to share.
I was wondering about your cover crop. Where do you get the seeds for them and also when you turn them over when planting, don't they come up like weeds between all the plants?
ReplyDeleteI get the mix from Fedco. I do have an occasional plant that will germinate in the spring that didn't germinate in the fall, but mostly they are good. Honestly in my garden the real weeds are dill and cilantro. In most years I'm weeding them out of everything. I'm guessing next year mustard will be as much of a problem since I let the mustard go to seed. It is best to turn it over at least three weeks before you plant to give it a chance to decompose. I put it roots up and top down, so most of it dies pretty quickly. If I can't give it any time to decompose and make sure it is dead, I'll rip it up and put it in the compost instead. I go back and forth with cover crops. I like them because they keep the soil healthy and hold onto nutrients. But they can also be a pain because they can hide things like slugs and cutworms. So when those pests are bad I tend to avoid mulches and cover crops, but I'd really prefer to keep the soil healthy if I can.
DeleteIt's nice to have some extra space to grow something just for fun. I planted birdhouse gourds in mine this year and I'm going to try drying and painting them.
ReplyDeleteThis is inspiring... I think I am going out to my garden and have a full day of clean ups myself. It is at least a gorgeous day to do that. My garden gets very little sun, so everything for me is an experiment. I have carrots in random places in the garden to see where I can best grow them.
ReplyDeleteWe had a beautiful day here but the fall garden is already planted so I planted things in pots for the windowsill :) I need ever bit of space that I can get.
ReplyDeleteOh for too much space.... I loved seeing the backdrop of houses.
ReplyDeleteYour garden area is very impressive, especially being an urban garden! I am behind with garden clean-up and hoping this will be the week!
ReplyDeleteI was not able to reply above, so am just continuing here...I usually add more compost(from the yard waste site) every spring. Winter time, my garden is clear of all plants. So do you think a cover crop would be better option than adding more compost the next year? I'm always worried if my soil is having enought nutrients or how to do so organically...Also, do you ever use blood meal/ bone meal to amend your garden? Is that considered organic gardening?
ReplyDeleteI do add compost too and that helps a lot. I think a cover crop (or mulch) is better for the health of the soil, but not as good for keeping pests out of the garden. So you can go either way. If you have a slug or bad cutworm problem, I'd probably leave it bare and make up for the abuse by adding compost in the spring. If I didn't, I'd go with a cover crop. Adding bone and blood meal is organic. Bone meal is something I use in my garden every year. Though recently I've been using bone char which is similar.
DeleteThe garden beds look great Daphne. I got out on Saturday and did some much needed work. You're definitely further along than us. We're using cover crop this year, and I got the garlic planted! Yea!
ReplyDeleteGood work getting through all that tidying up at such a steady pace. I seem to be doing feast or famine work efforts lately and I much prefer to do the slow and steady pace of regular work over a longer period of time. I did get to a big clean up of the tomatoes this weekend. Probably my least favorite thing to clean up is the tomato patch... next worse is clearing out the pole bean vines. :D
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