Four months since my last entry, so I guess we know how committed I am to this journal thing. So what happened:
Hops
Perle and Zeus had early big hops, but everything other than Hallertauer is a first year plant, and it's hard to say much. Flowering started variably, but all were in full swing by mid-July, and harvests began August 23rd (Perle) through mid-September. The north bed did not do well. I now toss all coffee grounds that way, will augment with compost and ash this winter.
Tomatoes
A few big plants seems like a good way to go, but I need bigger cages/hothouses. Paul Robeson got blight earliest, Soldacki grew very well, but many (most?) fruits got end rot. Black Krim did best.
Potatos
I'm pretty sure that I gave them too much nitro, and got impressive vines with small potatoes. I may have planted them too closely (8-10 inches) as well. That, and I don't think I kept track of which was which. Anyway, the one close to the house gave me about 5 gallons from 10 feet by July, and the further one just kept growing, but instead of feeding and embiggening the crop, was growing strings of marble-sized potatoes. They're cool for soup and stuff, but not much yield for the space and time consumed.
Beets and carrots in the ground now finishing up. A second planting of beets was stunted.
Green beans that remain are now destined to be dry beans, although I may have to pull them earlier than I want, simply because the sun is fading and clouds more frequent.
A handful of kale plants will try to survive the winter, and will be nice next spring if they do. Collards took a few hits during recent feastivities, but look great. Fava beans pushing 3' tall but I still think they'll just be biomass.
Speaking of which, I did two imus this year, contributing four big garbage bags of steamed sword fern and big maple leaves, a fair amount of ash and charcoal, two fish heads, fish and pig bone in various states of char, etc. into the 421 Turner ecosystem. Also, the imu depression has been dug and baked a couple of times now, and a yard or so of cover soil has been steam sterilized. Besides the imus, I've had fire frequently enough that there's a small flow of charcoal available for soil management.
Hops
Perle and Zeus had early big hops, but everything other than Hallertauer is a first year plant, and it's hard to say much. Flowering started variably, but all were in full swing by mid-July, and harvests began August 23rd (Perle) through mid-September. The north bed did not do well. I now toss all coffee grounds that way, will augment with compost and ash this winter.
Tomatoes
A few big plants seems like a good way to go, but I need bigger cages/hothouses. Paul Robeson got blight earliest, Soldacki grew very well, but many (most?) fruits got end rot. Black Krim did best.
Potatos
I'm pretty sure that I gave them too much nitro, and got impressive vines with small potatoes. I may have planted them too closely (8-10 inches) as well. That, and I don't think I kept track of which was which. Anyway, the one close to the house gave me about 5 gallons from 10 feet by July, and the further one just kept growing, but instead of feeding and embiggening the crop, was growing strings of marble-sized potatoes. They're cool for soup and stuff, but not much yield for the space and time consumed.
Beets and carrots in the ground now finishing up. A second planting of beets was stunted.
Green beans that remain are now destined to be dry beans, although I may have to pull them earlier than I want, simply because the sun is fading and clouds more frequent.
A handful of kale plants will try to survive the winter, and will be nice next spring if they do. Collards took a few hits during recent feastivities, but look great. Fava beans pushing 3' tall but I still think they'll just be biomass.
Speaking of which, I did two imus this year, contributing four big garbage bags of steamed sword fern and big maple leaves, a fair amount of ash and charcoal, two fish heads, fish and pig bone in various states of char, etc. into the 421 Turner ecosystem. Also, the imu depression has been dug and baked a couple of times now, and a yard or so of cover soil has been steam sterilized. Besides the imus, I've had fire frequently enough that there's a small flow of charcoal available for soil management.
No comments:
Post a Comment