We certainly are lucky with our fall weather this year. Tee shirt temperature and nice rains. Blue skies and calliope leaf show.
Today's tasks:
- Empty eight bags of compost and topsoil into the new garlic bed (why does the soil height always go down in a raised bed?)
- Spread and turn under the new amendments. (Got to get s proper garden fork. Don't know where mine went. I leveled with the side of the shovel.)
- Planted 140 cloves of garlic. They filled the bed full.
- I labeled each row.
- Spread salt marsh hay, about 3-5 inches, as a mulch to protect the plants against freeze-thaws and drying out during the winter.
- I piled the rest of the salt marsh hay bale on other plants I'd like to winter-over without putting them under covers. I covered some broccoli, small red cabbage, kale and beets. I think the hay will give it a few extra degrees of weather protection in the event we don't have snow cover.
- I broke off a nice length of horse radish root to try out. Smells great. I grate it in vinegar so it lasts.
- Finally, I dug another section of my sweet potato bed. Lots of tubers. Just pretty scary looking with the surface grub and wire worm damage.
3 comments:
I understand about the lowering of dirt in raised beds! Cleaned ours up a few weeks ago and planted garlic, stood back and said "I need more dirt for next year." Exact words. It must vanish...
Kathy,
I had a problem with wire worm last year. So, last fall I watered in beneficial nematodes and then this past spring, I interspersed marigolds with the vegetables in the beds that had the problem. I haven't had any wire worm issues this year. Marigold roots apparently put out a chemical that is toxic to wire worm. DebS.
Agree about the raised bed soil. I have mounted the soil and it ends up below the surface.
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