October 1, 2012

The count is in:  we grew more than 80 pumpkins and squash.

We grew so many pumpkins and squash this year, we ended up dumping a pile by our front tree when we ran out of room to display them around the house and yard.  The pumpkin patch had to get pulled so we have room to plant next year's garlic.  In all, we tilled 1,200 sq. ft. of garden space, wiping it clean to prepare for winter.  Half of this will be sown with red clover seed, and half will be covered with cardboard and fallen leaves through which we plant next Spring.

Individual garlic cloves spaced
for planting across a 20-ft. row.

Just over one week into official autumn, we're seeing individual trees starting the annual color show; some sugar maples have joined the scene with strong hints of red-orange.  There are lots of fun local events scheduled, as last year's article on Pumpkintown's annual Pumpkin Festival will show; the festival this year will be held Saturday October 13.

It's time to withhold water from Dutch hybrid amaryllis bulbs and bring them indoors for forcing after the holidays.  Spring bulbs such as tulips, hyacinths, and daffodils can be planted outdoors.  With the likelihood of frost arriving by the end of this month, a flurry of chores need to be finished, like cleaning and oiling garden tools for winter storage.

Cabbage, broccoli, and brussels sprouts grow large, seen through blackened sunflower stalks.

May 21, 2012

Standard garlic, the size of elephant garlic.

Garlic curing in the sun.

Garlic, our eighth harvest of the season (brussels sprouts, spinach, lemons, greens, radishes, cherries, broccoli), is curing in the sun until it is dry and odorless; cured garlic lasts up to one year in a dark dry pantry. 

Our landscape is changing:  spinach is gone and has been replaced with 7 wells for pumpkins and winter squash. 

The pumpkin patch (peas to the left), mulched with straw.
A few volunteer sunflowers are upward of 5 ft. tall.

Last year, one of our Jack-Be-Little pumpkins (the kind that fit in the palm of a hand) developed a hard, gourd-like shell; it took a mallet to smash (we were half expecting it to be the fake plastic kind that decorate wreaths); we saved its seeds to plant this year hoping we will get more like it.  That kind of shell outlasts the fleshy varieties (though it's not edible like fleshy varieties) and can be dried and decorated.  We're trying Prizewinner and New England Pie pumpkin varieties again this year with a new variety, Superfreak:  medium to large pumpkins that are warted all over, but fully edible.  Hope this is a better year for pumpkins, and we might just set a record-breaker!  The entire pumpkin patch is mulched with wheat straw saved from last autumn's bales.

Blueberry bushes covered in bird netting.

Blueberries and raspberries are ripening; we covered them in bird nets.  Peas will be our next harvest if everything goes as planned; pods are already swollen.  Little green tomatoes have set, corn is four inches high, and the only part of the garden yet to plant is a second set of sweet corn the first weekend of June (late for us, but it helps to extend the harvest).

We organically fertilized everything as part of general maintenence this weekend.  We feel like we have a better control on weeds this year, and we're ready if the summer turns droughty - a network of soaker hoses reaches about everything growing, and is set on an automatic timer, saving us time to enjoy the good stuff.

The last time we showed our strawberry bed, these plants were barely poking up out of the dirt.
Bush cherries in the background.

September 26, 2011

I've seen so many "Welcome Autumn" signs one would think people are eager to say good riddance to a summer of the kinds of records no one wants to break.  Sometimes it's outright disasterous that norms are averages of the extremes.  We're slightly behind on rain for our area, but there is still the chance for tropical storm precipitation through November; this was a good rain week with over 3 inches.  Overall we experienced a first-rate gardening year, the one difficulty being an isolated mini-drought in August.

Pumpkin growers across the nation are saying the crop will be small this year.  From floods in some parts to extreme drought in others, farmers endured a problematical growing season, so it wasn't just us.  Still, we enjoyed making this seasonal display under our front yard maple tree; by the time these pumpkins become pies, hay bales underneath will be moved to serve a more practical purpose as garden mulch.  To rid wheat straw of seeds, we let bales sit out in the rain over winter which either sprouts or smothers them before they are spread around plants.

We have a decent supply of pumpkin butter to sell at the "can't miss" annual Pumpkin Festival in Pumpkintown, SC this year on October 8, one week from this coming Saturday.  Hope you will come out and say 'howdy.'  There is a delightful little article on the event featured here that even mentions us!  No, we do not home-grow all the pumpkin required to make our pumpkin butter, but we will sell extra produce, so it's nice in some way to see a little return on our work.

Sweet bell peppers will be
chopped and frozen



Carrots, last harvest of the season



Our fall garden has really zoomed into growth, smiling at the rain and mild temperatures we saw last week.  Next year's future summer vegetable patch has been burned clear of brush and is ready for tilling before we lay down cardboard and fallen leaves.  We gathered the last of any fresh tomatoes and bell peppers - extra peppers were chopped and frozen to add to meatloaf, chili, and breakfast eggs later.  Carrots were dug, too, the final harvest of our summer garden.  Now as soon as the ground dries some, we will till and plant a cover crop of red clover.

Driving around town we see obvious signs of the seasonal change in trees, especially dogwoods and red maples.  Some sugar maples, too, are starting to glow in their tops.  Since we enjoyed abundant sunshine this year we're hoping for a spectacular show across the fall foliage spectrum of reds, oranges, and yellows.

July 11, 2011

Welcome to the dog days of summer--we're feeling it.  The first of July brought red ripe tomatoes and a bushel of bell peppers; sweet corn was not long behind.  Harvest baskets like these are becoming a daily event--the culmination of summer rain and sunshine, organic practices, and season-long planning.  Organic is not always as romantic as vibrant photos appear:  we could have pictured the dozen or more bell peppers with insect holes that were relegated to our compost bin; some insect damage is tolerable for the sake of a balanced ecological environment.  (Insecticides kill both bad bugs and the good kind that provide natural pest control and pollination).  Palmetto Acres Garden is producing much more than we can consume fresh, and some planning for the winter-to-come will enable us to enjoy our surplus when the garden is a frozen heap.

 

The bushel of bell peppers were halved or chopped, frozen, and individually wrapped and freezer bagged.  Cucumbers were pickled with dill and garlic and canned in jars.  Green beans are pressure canned in quart jars.  We ensure that everything is harvested at its peak ripeness when it is preserved.  For the present time we are keeping up with corn fresh on the cob and tomatoes in garden spaghetti sauce and salsa.

 

Carrots remain fresh in the ground through winter, so we pull up only what we need.  Still waiting on that first melon, but our first tree-ripened peach was a sweet treat.  Dill seed heads are turning brown and will be saved to plant new dill next year.  Gladiolas are adding to the riot of summer color, masking some of the garden's lush and overgrown appearance.  Pumpkins are setting fruit, soft and green now, but swelling with purpose toward a September harvest. 

 

Too early to think about Fall?  Not if we want brussels sprouts, cabbages, and root crops to enjoy later.  Brussels sprouts take on average 120 days to harvest, so add that up:  it's time to start seed indoors now.  These are one of the few vegetables that can be harvested all winter long.

May 9, 2011

This back yard was a vast expanse of lawn punctuated with a few mature trees when we moved in one year ago; the addition of more than 70 fruiting trees and bushes, and a 2,000 sq. ft. vegetable garden have enabled us to live independent of grocery store produce shipped across thousands of miles from domestic and international sources.  Now all it needs is a few chickens to make it a true hobby farm, but we'll save that for a future year.

Spinach season has come to a happy end - on Saturday we cut the plants off at ground level, more than enough to fill a tall kitchen trash bag.  It was washed, and what we did not save for fresh use was blanched and packed into freezer bags to enjoy later.

Each section of the garden is planned seasonally, and we practice succession planting and crop rotation so that no part of the garden goes to waste - something is growing or in production nearly year-round.  Now that spinach is gone, the ground is clear to plant pumpkins.  Bryan dug wells in the middle of the plot and filled them with aged, composted manure.  Even in this little space we grow four varieties:  Prizewinner (giant), New England Pie (sweet), Connecticut Field, and Jack Be Little (mini).  The former are always a hit at the annual Pumpkin Festival in Pumpkintown each October.

"If you grow pumpkins, you will be happy when you pick them.  Savor what you feel, in addition to what you taste.  Enjoy the blossoms - if pumpkins were rare, gardeners would pamper them in greenhouses just for their extraordinary flowers."  --J. L. Hudson as quoted in The Perfect Pumpkin, by Gail Damerow.  Seed will go in the ground this Saturday the 14th.

As an experiment this year we planted nine Aunt Molly's ground cherry bushes from seed - sent as a free gift from a mail order company.  The idea of annual fruit sounds appealing.  Compare the garden now to what it looked like in February, here.