I’ve been thinking about extending this 4’x8’ bed like this and decided to go ahead and do it (I still have to finish it). The triangular shape fits well into the landscaping I want to do in this area. It’s a small increase in the square footage, about 7 square feet, but it should be a good spot to grow herbs. And the soil doesn’t have to be great to grow herbs, so I can get out of deep digging this spot. I may put some black plastic over this to kill the overturned sod.
Yields have been really off since the hot weather broke. The cloud cover has been nearly continuous, but there have been a few sunny days that produced some growth. Just a few days ago I picked the first batch of Provider beans from the last bean patch of the year, in the middle bed above. A few more weeks of sunshine should give some more beans before their curtain call, if the bean beetles don’t get everything first.
There’s a lot of peppers that also need some sun. The red hot cherry peppers and Hungarian wax peppers have really set out a lot of peppers on long stems that drape over the sweet pepper plants. Just one week of sunny weather and there should be enough peppers to make a batch of salsa. I was planning to can salsa but after some research it looks like canned salsa requires more vinegar or lemon juice than I want in a fresh salsa. So I think I’ll make salsa the way I want then put it in plastic containers and freeze it. The eggplant is big but not producing. Doggone heat-loving plants.
I’ve been really lazy this year about planting crops for fall. There are two chinese cabbage (Soloist) and a bok choi growing in the brassica bed, but I never really got started with brassica seedlings. Too many things going on right now. There’s spinach and lettuce seedlings in the greens bed which are coming along. Soon I need to plant the other half of the bed in spinach and lettuce for overwintering.
Yields for the week: Okra 1 oz; Hot pepper 1 oz; Beans 13 oz; Tomato 14 oz; Sweet pepper 3 oz.
Total for year: 176 pounds.
1 comment:
We got about the same amount of rain down here to the south of you. It was welcome, but too late to help some things. It was great for the fall plantings though.
I never made a canned salsa that I liked. Too much vinegar, like you found in your research. I never tried freezing it, so I'd be interested in what you think about the end result.
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