Vonnahme family blog

I’ve been meaning to get to this for months now. Maybe if I finally get it out, I’ll start blogging a bit more about more interesting family stuff?

Notable events of 2006 garden:

• Help from Dad and Beth. Yeah! The only downside was my dad saying “I weeded this part for you too”… and my response, “uh…. those were the carrots?”
• The frost in early June
• A very rainy and cool August — not much growth then. Nobody got much zucchini or such things.
• The late frost in September. We didn’t get a killing frost until after Sept. 15. I should have done more harvesting early in September though, because nothing was growing very much.
• Another bumper crop of peas.
• A much better potato crop than last year’s, which was wimpy.
• Much bigger basil plants due to transparent plastic row covers.

Observations along the way:

• fertilizer vs. water — previously I thought that food helped the plants grow better, but in some cases I’ve overfed them nitrogen. I am now thinking that plenty of water is much more important than fertilizer, and heat is very important for some crops too.
• I used clear plastic to cover the dirt under the row covers because I didn’t want to make an extra trip, but way too many weeds grew under it.
• The margins of the garden are marginal. Crops inside always grow better.
• Pole beans didn’t make it to fruit this year. Maybe if it hadn’t been so cool in August it would have? Vic said he does bush beans because pole beans often lose the race to beat the frost.
• Hilling potatos with the rototiller rocks.
• Soaker hose irrigation with plastic over the dirt saves so much water and work, it’s totally worth it, even though it’s less aesthetically pleasing than nice brown dirt (with weeds?)

Next year:

• I think we can keep up with a Calypso Farm share and our garden without wasting.
• Take time off to garden, especially in June when planting and building row covers and pea trellises take time.
• start more stuff from seeds. Several rosemary, thyme plants to freeze.
• Use IRC or black plastic mulch and soaker hose irrigation on at least a quarter of the garden. Put hoses around the margins!
• Put the leeks in mulched part – they grew so much better in Dad’s garden last year.
• Transplant most flowers into 4″ pots in May so they can get bigger before going in the ground.
• Plant the tater rows 4″ closer. Rototiller tread marks make good guides, but there doesn’t need to be more than a few inches between the treads.
• Elevate the pea mesh for ease of weeding. Don’t weed the peas with a hoe but go carefully by hand.
• Don’t murder the carrots with the hoe.

Here’s to another garden well grown!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 19th, 2006 at 4:14 pm and is filed under . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.