Summer Harvest

Summer Harvest

Leaves in the Beds

Leaves in the Beds

The garden is put to bed. I was diligent about dragging in leaves to cover most of the beds with a thick protective layer. Last year snows and cold weather came before I was ready and the leaf covering ritual was interrupted. That caused me much more work this season than I wanted to do, but I did learn a lot about weeding. Without the leaf cover, weeds emerged sooner and the ground in the beds was not as soft. The extra weeding re-affirmed my belief that we approach weeds wrongly in both gardening and agriculture and that a far more sustainable approach would be to use a lot of hand labor to control weeds.

Well Weeded Garden

Well Weeded Garden

I did end up getting the garden paths and beds nice and clean by the time the season ended and I promise to be diligent about getting the leaves raked in from now on.

Tomato Trellis

Tomato Trellis

My biggest garden triumph was the building of a very rugged and useful tomato trellis using t-posts and bamboo stakes. The tomatoes loved it and I’ll be refining this approach for future tomato growing.

Flowering Oregano

Flowering Oregano

I expanded my herb bed and was amazed at the power of oregano as a pollinator attractor. It was loaded with insects of all types, especially bumblebees, for most of the summer and well into the fall.

Monarch Butterfly

Monarch Butterfly

Monarch Caterpillar

Monarch Caterpillar

One insect that was not as plentiful as in other years was the Monarch butterfly. We had a few, but their decline may be apparent in my own backyard.

Violetta Italia

Violetta Italia

Several crops performed exceptionally well for us this year, including coles of all types. In addition to the beautiful violetta italia cauliflower, we had a never ending supply of broccoli raab, some really nice cabbages, great Brussels sprouts, and Red Russian kale is now a plentiful volunteer that has to be treated as a weed.

Onions

Onions

We probably had our best onion harvest ever. Unfortunately, the leeks did not fare well due to my planting them too deeply. A lesson learned and a reinforcement of the home gardening mantra of “don’t worry, plant enough different stuff, you will always get something.”

Sweet Peppers

Sweet Peppers

Peppers were great, too and we heard from other gardeners that this was a good year for them.

Volunteer Pea Shoots

Volunteer Pea Shoots

On a road trip restaurant stop, we learned about using peas shoots as a vegetable and now they will be part of our harvest along with the peas, themselves.

Whitetail Deer

Whitetail Deer

Our worst garden pests continue to be mammals, not insects. Deer and woodchucks would consume most of our tender crops if we did not fence, trap, and let the dog run.

Boots Guarding Catnip

Boots Guarding Catnip

My most faithful garden helper is not the dog, but Boots, who is always assisting with weeding, harvesting, and providing company even if it may not be totally wanted.

I’m looking forward to 2015.

Pin It on Pinterest

Share This

Share this post with your friends!