One for the road

Leaving for New York tonight to attend my cousins' wedding on Saturday. The ceremony's upstate in Binghamton, but I'll be spending a couple of days in the city with my sister and brother in law prior. Then a few days in D.C. to catch up with an old college friend, Brian.

For the interim, the garden will be in the hands of my able-bodied roommates (I'm praying for rain). I've shot a few pictures of some garden produce as it's coming along.

Dew sprinkled quinoa starting to form the main seed cluster.

Peas overflowing on the vine.

Rattlesnake pole beans filling out nicely.

Pumpkin blossom nestled between the beans.

Scarlet Runner beans and blossoms.

A pic of the garden today (most of it anyway). Even with all my careful attention to spacing, everything seems to have grown rather close together. I guess part of me didn't expect it all to grow so prolifically. The tomatoes in the cloche are beginning to press against the plastic. When I get back next Wednesday I will have to figure out the best way to deal with their rampant growth.

Weeding

Summer's just officially begun and already the days grow shorter. A depressing thought I'll try to ignore as long as the garden's growing green and vibrantly. The pea harvest is in full effect; the plants have grown so large so quickly they're actually causing the trellis to sag! Today Aaron helped me tie the plants back to prevent them from leaning onto the row of beans, which are also growing rather fanatically. The northwest end of the garden has become a bit of a struggle to navigate through, in spite of (what I thought was) ample spacing. This is partly due to my reluctance to pull a volunteer pumpkin vine that sprouted near the end of the bean row.

From here on out we'll have all the peas we can eat and then some.

Aaron and I spent a little time managing the garden this afternoon. We piled some compost around the potatoes to encourage them to fill out with more spuds underground. The spinach and broccoli were also pulled from the garden. In the next few weeks I will be seeding the area where those plants were with crops that I intend to overwinter, perhaps leeks or kale, or some other hardy overwintering variety.

An important aspect of garden maintenance I haven't spent any time discussing is weeding. With proper upkeep this task will take only 1-2 hours a week. It's usually only when the task is neglected that it's a real chore. The main reason to weed is to avoid competition between your vegetables and the weeds. Weeds will use water and minerals from the surrounding soil that would otherwise go to your plants.

I try to break it up to about two times a week. The weeds are given little chance to reach any appreciable size, and the task takes less time. A regular garden hoe works best between rows, and saves your back. Last year I did all my weeding by hand, and definitely made the work much harder on myself and my back. A good hoe is definitely a must have for in-ground gardening. I still pull weeds growing near the plants by hand to avoid damaging them, but by doing this frequently it is a much less tedious endeavor. Here's Aaron demonstrating his technique:


Using the hoe allows you to keep your back straight and exert minimal effort.

And just for fun, a picture of the first eggplant blossom: