August 1, 2012 - The August Garden (part 1)



It's hard to believe I'm planting my fall garden, with temperatures like this.



But I am!  All of the potatoes and onions have been harvested from the East garden, giving me room to plant some fall veggies.  

 At the entrance to the East Garden, the sweet potatoes seem happy in their barrel.  I hope they weren't planted too late to give me at least a small crop.  The lavender alyssum has nearly covered the chive border, making it a bit difficult to snip chives when I need them.  I'll have to be diligent about pulling volunteers next spring, giving the chives room to grow and spread.


Here is the newly cleared and recently planted fall garden.  It's hard to believe this was a tangled mess of potatoes and onions just a short time ago.


 The first bed is filled with Imperator carrots.  Germination was a bit spotty, but not bad considering they sprouted in 90-100 degree weather.


The second bed has a double row of bush beans, I think I planted Contender, but I've forgotten....they might be Topcrop.


Gonzalez mini-cabbages grow on both sides of a row of carrots.  The larger ones were thinnings from an earlier planting in the North Garden, the small ones on the right were recently seeded and waiting to grow a bit before being thinned.  I'll find a place to plant those thinnings, too.


I planted a single row of Ed's Velour bush beans, now I think I'm wasting too much space.  I'll probably plant two more rows right away, one on each side of the presently growing ones.


In the foreground is a newly planted bed of Burpee's A#1 Hybrid carrots.  Behind that is the newly prepared bed and a trellis for Green Arrow peas to be planted in two weeks.  I have a 98-cent packet of the seeds for my first experiment with fall peas, and I'm saving the "good ones" for spring.  The small square in the upper right was planted with three varieties of lettuce, Buttercrunch, Summercrisp and Little Gem.  I'm trying to use up some old seeds, so I might have to replant if germination is poor.


 The Kennel garden has become a favorite place to sit and look at the garden.  It's so cool and shady and serene.  The morning glories are so pretty in the morning.  Unfortunately I took this photo after dinner.  Look how huge the Brussels sprouts are!  I wonder if they will ever get any sprouts.  They have tiny nubbins that never get any larger.  Another bed of newly planted mixed lettuces is hidden behind the sprouts.


Fresh veggies and berries, hanging out in the shade.



18 comments:

  1. Beautiful! You are so much better organized than I will ever get :) I am behind on my fall planting but will catch up!

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    1. Jenny, I think you are well on your way to catching up and passing me by!

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  2. I'm sorta, kinda glad we can't have a "second" season here. I'd be exhausted!

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    1. Sue, I've never bothered with one before, but all that newly cleared garden area was just screaming to be planted. It probably would have been smarter to just cover it with a load of poo and give it a rest.

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  3. So pretty. The problem with my fall garden is that I don't get sun in my garden come September. Maybe an hour or two, but not much more. My neighbor's house and tree shades it. I occasionally get these fantasies about a small greenhouse for the winter then reality hits. Nothing would grow without sun anyway. But some spots get more than others. I never plant close to the fence because that already has lost a lot of sun.

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    1. Daphne, my neighbors trees shade a lot of my garden year around. Her milkweeds are so tall they are even beginning to shade it in the mornings. The plants seem to adjust OK. I did have to move my potted peppers this week. They were getting no sun at all.

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  4. Still well over 100 here just a bit early and hot to put in yet for us. But soon I will start putting in the fall garden. I do have some cabbages started inside and rhubarb. Planning on green beans, beets, kale, chard, for direct seed in about another month.

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    1. Texan, as you can see by the forecast, it's supposed to be 102 here on Sunday. Our temps usually run 4-8 degrees higher than the recorded highs, so I expect this week to be a real scorcher.

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  5. I am starting to rotate in the fall crops too. I planted out the cabbage, broccoli, kohlrabi, and some kale about a week ago. I will be direct seeding some kale and swiss chard this coming weekend. Followed by some lettuces, and then eventually the big spinach patch. The fall crop of carrots have been growing under cover for quite a while now. With our cooler conditions I have to start things alot sooner to get sufficient growth completed before the short cool days of fall arrive and slow growth down to a standstill.

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    1. Kitsap, the month of August is always so terribly hot here. I do hope my fall garden doesn't suffer, but the year I couldn't plant until July turned out to be a great, if short, gardening year. I'm most concerned about timing the pea planting.

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  6. Granny, Don't you ever have pests under those sprawling vines or bushes? When my garden grows, I am usually startled by either snakes(yikes!) or rodents of some kind scurrying, when I'm trying to look at my plants. They make me want to avoid bushes of zucchini/cucumber/squash plants, unfortunately (: Also, interested to know what kind of fencing you have there in the picture.....

    Side note: I'm trying to get a new raised bed for raspberries, and wondering if I need a 6 inch high bed or 8 inch? It will be 12 ft long. Any advice?

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    1. Random, the only garden pests here are Annie and Otto! No snakes, no mice. I can't even find the little toad I released, I think he moved to the neighbor's place :-(

      The fencing is a plastic mesh, comes in a roll, 3'x50' for around $12. I love it, but I do have to use some wire fencing along the bottom, or the dogs can go right under it. It's great for everything from fencing to bird protection to trellis making. Give me a couple of posts, some zip ties and that fencing and I can do anything!

      My raspberry bed is 2 stacked 2x8s, so about 15" high. Whatever you decide, just know the suckers will still find their way underneath and show up all over the garden. If I had it to do over, the berries would be in the middle of the lawn so I could mow on both sides of the row.

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    2. Random, I did a post on the Dalen Plastic Fencing here:

      http://annieskitchengarden.blogspot.com/2010/04/april-18-2010-my-clothespin-garden.html

      The price has gone up a dollar or two, of course.

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    3. Thank you Granny for your response! You sure are lucky to have such a nice garden with no pests!! Our raspberry bed is surrounded by lawn that will be mowed regularly! Will look into the plastic fencing!

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