Approximately four dozen tasty radishes harvested on June 22nd.
I fell a little behind the past week in doing my garden update, so I have some catching up to do. When I last posted, I was lamenting the rain and issues it caused in the garden. Well it’s now day 35 of the garden project, and the first products of the rains (besides the massive weed growth) are ready for harvest!
On the 15th of June, I pulled the first dozen or so red radishes from the ground, did much more weeding (and only achieved 33% complete status) and was happy with how things are looking, overall.
I’ve already reached some conclusions on what needs to be done next year:
- Plant earlier overall, and lettuce & spinach definitely much earlier. It is amazing how far ahead of me the produce is in some of my neighbors at the Roseville Community Garden.
- Weed earlier and far more aggressively, even if it means pulling a few sprouting seedlings with the weeds. The longer the wait, the harder to differentiate between the two!
- Start more seedlings indoors and earlier next season, and pare down the variety of produce I plant based on what has been successful so far.
- Where not feasible to start indoors, plant nursery-started items for some produce. I’ve had a hard time getting cucumber plants to germinate or survive from two rounds of seedings I’ve already done.
Rains bring radishes. And more weeds! This June 15, 2012 photo shows the status of my Roseville Community Garden plot.
Since I missed posting last week, here is a hot of how the garden looked on June 15, 2012. I spent another 5-6 hours over the weekend pulling more weeds and got them removed from just over 50% of the garden – while stragglers continue to pop up in already completed portions.
Did I mention that weeds are ruling the world?
During the course of the week of the 17-22nd, I made short stops to water and do maintenance weeding of already cleared areas, and returned on the night of the 23rd to attack the next major weed stronghold: my beets, broccoli, spinach and Swiss chard rows. It was ugly-muddy, as we’d had a massive rain Friday night, but that also helped make it easier to pluck the offending squatters from the soil.
After a couple of hours, as night and the mosquitoes descended on the garden, I’d rid about 75% of the garden of unwanted growth. One more endurance session of kneeling and bending and I should have the worst of the weeds defeated! Oh to be 30 and have healthy knees again!
I’m getting excited at the so-far successful growth of some of the things I planted. The radishes have produced spectacularly. My rows of fennel are coming along quite nicely, as are all the pepper plants that I had almost given up on as seedlings. I should be in “pepper heaven” come late July and August. And the tomatoes have grown thick and wildly, with tons of flowers and fruit already appearing on several of the plants. I am anxiously awaiting that first home-grown tomato of the season. “I love the taste of homegrown tomatoes in the summer…it tastes like victory!”
The most current image of my Roseville Community Garden plot, taken Saturday, June 23, 2012.
Herbs are another story. Except for the basil, the other herbs I planted from seed: parsley, rosemary and thyme have been no-shows, a victim of the first flooding downpours after planting.
Bottom line? As you can see in the photo on the right, things are looking good after 35 days.
It is amazing how much the garden has changed since I took this photo after preparing the garden for planting on May 19, 2012. And I’ve harvested my first crop (only about half of it!) of radishes, had the opportunity to share them with neighbors and enjoy them myself – the hard work is paying off. But let me tell you, it’s far harder work than I imagined, and I’m not doing near as good a job as some of my garden neighbors. But that will be a topic for an upcoming blog post – a Tour of the Farm – in the coming weeks.
Oh, one last thing. I found a potato in a bag I had just purchased that had started sprouting “eyes,” and rather than toss it out or cut the eyes out, I halved it and planted it in the garden during the first week of June. Guess what? It’s growing! So it looks like I may have potatoes to harvest come fall – we’ll have to see how that goes. Below is a photo of the new potato growth sprouting in the garden.
Thanks for reading along in my garden adventure – see you next post!
Sprouting potato plant in plot #63 at Roseville Community Garden, taken June 23, 2012.