Another experiment

I've mentioned before that I have a lot of clay in my back yard. In the spring when it's wet, I practically have a creek running across my yard. In August when it's dry, there are spots that are like concrete. I don't really care that my back yard isn't full of lush grass, but I don't like the swamp/concrete thing, and the bad drainage affects a corner of the kitchen garden. This picture was taken right outside the garden fence on June 9th.

Last fall while doing research in preparation for the garden, I came across Groundhog Radishes. They are used as a cover crop, for wildlife fodder and for soil improvement. The story is that these radishes grow fast, and they can get huge. They are reliably winter-killed and decompose quickly. Because they grow so large, they can help break-up compact clay soil and increase drainage. When they decompose, they add organic matter to the soil. They sounded like the perfect answer to my backyard clay dilemma.

I thought about the radishes all winter, and after this wet spring, decided they were worth a shot. The first issue I encountered is the fact that they are normally used for pasture improvement. Therefore, the smallest package of seeds I could find was five pounds. That's enough for about a half acre of new pasture. To put this into perspective, my entire city lot is about one-sixth of an acre, and the area in my backyard that I was considering planting them in is about 1/15 of an acre. I've got a lot more seed than I need.

My first idea for planting them was to aerate the yard and spread the seed around with a spreader, hoping that the seeds would find a safe place to sprout in the holes. Then I did some additional reading and discovered that the radishes smell while they are decomposing. One of the articles even mentioned making sure to tell your neighbors what you were doing because the smell would be obvious. So, the stench, coupled with not being able to mow the entire yard made me go with plan B, which was planting them in isolated areas that need the most help.

Several weeks ago, I took out a handful of seeds and sprinkled them into the cracks in the soil. After a few days of watering, I had sprouts. This is them after about a week:

They're off to a good start.

In the couple weeks since these pictures were taken, they've grown a lot. They're now at the point where I probably need to do some thinning. As the experiment progresses, I'll keep you posted. Since I have yet to find any information about someone using these in a yard, I might be making a complete fool of myself. It's okay, I don't mind. If I can't make a fool of myself in my own backyard, where can I?

Fall garden, take two

A few weeks ago, I proudly proclaimed that I had a fall garden.

Shortly after that, it started to go downhill. The beet sprouts disappeared. I could see that some fell over and shriveled up, but the rest just disappeared. I'm not really sure if it was too hot or too dry or if bugs got them, but they're gone.

The peas are still around, but not fairing much better.

This is one of the best-looking ones. It's been brutally hot, and several of them look cooked. I've been trying to help them stay cool with water and mulch. After today, temperatures are supposed to get cooler, so maybe some will survive. You can see in the background that the weeds aren't suffering.

Lucky for me, I went to the garden center this morning. What a pleasant surprise to find fall vegetable plants for sale. I got some Southern Comet broccoli and Red Acre cabbage. Then I just had to squeeze them into the garden.

The broccoli moved into the area recently vacated by the disappearing beet sprouts.

The cabbage is squeezed in between the basil and the zinnias. I pulled one of my two cucumber plants to make room. I sure hope these guys do well.

Today's birds: blue jay, mourning dove, brown-headed cowbird, chickadee, white-breasted nuthatch, sparrow.

Rabbit

Look who I caught doing something naughty:

Better that he eat the ornamental sweet potato than anything in here

though, so I left him alone.

The most fun to harvest

Potatoes win the K's Garden 2013 prize for the most fun edible to harvest. You probably didn't even know there was such a prize. Well, I made it up last Saturday while I was digging potatoes.

This was the first time I've ever grown potatoes. As with everything I grow, I was excited to see the first sprouts.

And then I was somewhat shocked at how fast they grew.

I quickly ran out of the topsoil I had for covering them and decided to try straw. That $10 bag of straw from Tractor Supply might've been my best gardening purchase of the year.

The potatoes kept right on growing, but then they started to fall over...

right about the time they started to bloom.

Shortly after, this happened. I still can't believe it myself.

When the plants started dying back, I stopped taking pictures, and began waiting. When I couldn't take it any more, I carefully dug some up. They were so good, I dug up some more. Last Saturday, I decided it was time to dig the rest of them.

Is there anything as exciting as gently pulling away the straw and seeing this?

Or pulling a plant out of the ground and having this come out with it?

I dug up 12 pounds on Saturday, giving me a total of 15 pounds from six plants. I don't know if that's good, bad or average, but it was enough for me.

The potatoes are all different sizes, but every one I've eaten has tasted wonderful. I don't have ideal storage conditions so I've shared some of them. My neighbor said they were awesome.

My kind of Saturday

Twelve pounds of potatoes,

two pounds of tomatoes, two cucumbers,

a half a pound of green beans,

a handful of peppers,

and five pints of salsa

Please ignore the dirty towel.

all in one day.

A thing of beauty

Seven pounds of tomatoes on Wednesday.

Four more pounds today. Many of these have been put in the freezer to be made into sauce at a later date. The rest will go into salsa this weekend. I'm pretty sure I finally have enough peppers.

I trimmed some branches from the tomato jungle today. Those plants don't need to grow any bigger, and I want them focusing on fruit, not leaves.

The garden August 22nd

Green beans

It seems like I've been waiting a long time for this:

I finally got to pick some green beans last Saturday. These came off of the bush beans. Since then I've picked more from them and even a few from the pole beans.

My green bean situation has led me to do some thinking. I don't know if it was the late start or something else, but the pole beans haven't done much. They're about two feet tall. The bush beans look like this:

And the pole beans look like this:

Yes, I know you can't tell the difference. That's the point. The pole beans haven't grown very tall at all. I think my crazy tower is partly to blame. They did not seem to grasp onto the strings the way I imagined. I tried to help, but even then, they preferred to reach out and stick to each other. What little 'viney' growth they've had has been on the fence or other plants.

Before I planted this year, I thought about doing away with pole beans altogether and planting only bush beans. My dad plants bush beans and always seems to have more beans much earlier than me. This year's results seem to support that idea. Not sure what I'll do with the bean goal post, but I'll figure out some way to use it.

The good news is, by this evening I had enough beans to do something, so I dug up some more potatoes (two pounds 10 ounces from one plant), and made green beans and potatoes with pesto. The original recipe came out of a vegetarian Italian cookbook I have and also includes pasta. I skipped the pasta. The beans, potatoes and basil all came from my garden. It was delicious.

In other garden news, the marigolds are stunning.

I've pulled a bunch of seed heads, with the hope of not having to buy seeds next year.

The butterflies are enjoying my zinnias. The day I took this guy's picture, there was also a monarch flying around, but he didn't sit still long enough.

Today's birds: goldfinch, mourning dove, blue jay, sparrow. I should've posted last night. I finally saw a wren in my back yard yesterday!