Sunday, August 8, 2010
Re-thinking My Future Gardening
Well, this summer has been a bear as far as growing anything. My tomatoes have been slow, right along with the okra. The beans got eaten up and once again the squash vine borers had a field day with the yellow squash and zucchini. I have been sitting down and thinking about how I do things around here. My spring gardens always do pretty well and my fall gardens do much better as the cooler weather sees fewer bugs and temperatures are not so extreme. During the summer it is quite common for the heat index to go over 100 degrees which makes it really tough on anything but the most heat loving plants. And even those have been affected this year as evidenced by the tomatoes and the okra being slow to flower and set fruit. So my thoughts are that I will plant a minimal summer garden, certainly not even half of what I normally plant. However, fall and spring will see every available inch in the garden planted. Maybe this will help, at least it is worth a try. In order to make up for the poor production of this summer this will be the first very large fall garden I have had. I have been busy adding compost, planting, weeding and such. I still have lots of planting to do but for some things it is still too hot just yet. That is ok, as the weeding and amending are taking up quite a bit of time. Each year in the garden brings something new to learn and something new to try. I love this life!
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2 comments:
How true, it's a learning process. If you think you know it all you really are cheating yourself, because there is so much to learn and each season throws you a new curve*wink*
Our hoophouse has been a real learning curve,and the things we're learning will help us next season.
We're going to try Fall gardening, inside the hoophouse, have some late tomatoes started and will do cool weather crops and hope to extend our cantaloupe, eggplant and okra well into Nov. That's the plan anyway*wink*
I was just taking stock of our cellar pantry and we're sitting good on most everything but tomatoes for sauces and juice. So while our garden is slowly producing we are not paniced or pushed to get an over abundance. This comes from taking full advantage( even when you are sick and tired of it all, LOL) of the seasons the garden/ orchard produce well. :o)
Our garden this year has been meager in producing - well except for lettuce. It has been too wet of a year, but next year will hold a different set of circumstances. I think every year will be unique and it just goes to show that we have to be flexible and grow what is doing well in any given year.
Blessings,
Michelle
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