Monday, September 01, 2014

late summer garden cleanup

garden after cleanup 9513 What a beautiful Labor Day weekend! Here's my new garden. I put a ladder out in the yard and did what I could to get a good perspective. Its hard to do as good as that second floor window over my garden that I used to have. But this new garden is awesome. Its teaching me all sorts of things about growing vegetables and getting a new garden up and going.

This weekend I pulled dead pea vines, spring broccoli plants, early bean plantings and about half of my cucumber and summer squash vines. I cut down and pulled out my tomato plants, which have been hit by late blight (I will bag up the infected plants, let them fry in the sun a while, then dispose of them in the trash so I don't risk overwintering of the pathogen). This cleanup has opened up lots of space for fall plantings. I have a few trays of seedlings that have been growing slow, but I will plant out and see how they do. I have also been able to find some nice fall seedlings at local garden stores.

Also, I am trying out some hoops. My husband is helping with these (actually, he's setting these up for me...). I would like hoops with row cover over any brassica plants I grow in this garden including my fall broccoli, kale and bok choi. Cabbage worms are very bad in this area, though they should die off as the fall approaches. I'd also like to try tunnels for winter growing.

Below is the "before cleanup" garden photo and a closer-up shot of my buddy, Skip.
garden before cleanup 9508 garden and skippy 9515

4 comments:

David Velten said...

Congratulations on the new garden. You have done amazing things in just a year. I use hoops over the raised beds and it works for brassicas, but also for squash to ward off bugs and borers.

Dana K said...

Kathy, your garden looks great. I live a little ways north of you so I was curious what nurseries you found Fall seedlings at.

kathy said...

David, How do you get pollination in your covered squashes?

kathy said...

Dana, Mahoney's in Concord had a few fall seedlings, but a little place nearby had more of them. I forget the name, maybe Brigham's? Too bad these are so hard to find.