It is so incredibly satisfying to see that we not only survived a whole year, but that we are still at it and wanting to continue. Isn't that great!
We have new volunteers that are super people... Doug and Laurie. Welcome! They are helping greatly in conquering the grass and getting new crops planted. Everybody enjoys their company.
We have been harvesting a number of crops: broccoli (both green and purple), collards, kale, chard, yellow snap beans, winged beans, frying peppers, bell peppers, potatoes, sweet potatoes, gourds, all sorts of herbs, chinese cabbage, lettuce, and eggplant. The winter loving crops are really doing well. The broccoli heads are 6-7" across!
The potatoes are being planted again. We should have been planting them last month but we were just to busy. So two varieties are now in and more will be in next week. Volunteers have been planting beans and are getting the rows ready for peas next. Time for seeding more radishes too.
This week we harvested some sugar cane and pressed it for juice. It was the first time that any of us have tried fresh pressed cane. Experimenting a little in order to discover the easiest way for use to feed that cane through the press, it wasn't long before we had cup after cup for incredibly yummy juice. By adding a few squeezes of orange and lime juice, it turned out to be a drink suitable for the gods! It was so good that we plan to open open a new area of garden just for sugar cane.
Our chickens are just now starting to lay eggs. So far it appears that just one lone pullet has figured out that the days are getting longer, and so far has produced 8 eggs. We eagerly await the other hens to get the message too. Fresh eggs are very much welcome.
The garden as added ducks to its garden residents. Three young muscovy ducks will be trained, hopefully, to eat slugs. Slugs cause a lot of damage, so a safe biological control (aka: ducks) would be a good benefit.
We are still getting gourds from the patch, but not so many. Sue is gradually removing the old plants so that the patch can be rejuvenated. Time to start over again.
Pests & diseases: every garden has them. especially if you try to be chemical free. Aphids were discovered on the collards. Cabbage worms on the cabbage and broccoli. So we broke out the safer soap and dipel. The collards also show signs of mildew. For now we are removing any leaves showing signs. Not sure what to do about the mildew, but collard plants should outlive it.
January 23rd
The weather has been perfect lately for greens. Kale, collards, chard, chinese cabbage, broccoli, etc. Luckily they are growing faster than the bugs can eat them.
Lots of harvest this week: frying peppers, winged beans, broccoli, portuguese cabbage, eggplant, chard, mustard greens, chinese cabbage greens, lettuce, sweet potatoes. We harvested a sweet potato called Oriental Beauty. It looks to be red skinned and pale yellow fleshed. It will be the first time we have tried it.
These past two weeks we have gotten a good handle on the returning grass. Doug has a great technique to attacking and removing grass. Now we just have to make more mulch in order to keep the grass from coming back full strength again.
Carl has been working hard on clearing more land. Initially getting the grass down is hard work. He wacks the tall stuff, then uses a weed wacker to bring is down to a height the lawnmower can handle. Then the regrowth is sprayed with strong vinegar with citrus oil. Then the rototiller hacks it to death. Rocks are removed. Compost tilled in. Wow, lots of work.
The chickens are laying eggs a bit more. We don't know which of the pullets have started laying, but we are getting some eggs every day. Today we got three green eggs in addition to the brown and the white ones. Neat!
More veggies are being planted into the garden. Two types of potatoes, bush cucumbers, radishes, basil, carrots. There is broccoli, mustard, cabbage, and onions in the hoophouse that should be ready for transplanting soon.
We have taken a serious step towards our tilapia/aquaponics project. A hottub has been donated to the garden, and volunteers moved it this past Saturday. Next week we have other volunteers scheduled to build the base for it. We would like to try lettuce in the aquaponic system. We'll see.
January 28th
Yikes, we have more volunteers! Marvelous! ....Marta & Allison. Plus two guests brought by Sue and Allison. What a grand time we had.
Carl got the lawn mowed today then moved on to clean up the grass around the garden. As soon as Sue pulled out the old gourd plants, Carl was able to move in and mow the grass and weeds down there in the old patch. Now it's time for the rototiller there.
We pulled out the mature plants that had slowed down, and that we didn't really want anymore: orange sweet peppers, spent Violet Queen cauliflower, winged beans, old lettuce that didn't make the grade. The tiller mixed the old mulch and compost into the soil making it ready for the next crop....which went into place in a matter of minutes! Quick volunteers, aren't they? In went beans, taro, yacon, Oriental Beauty sweet potatoes, radishes, plus more. Alice, Nancy, and others were right on the task.
A good harvest today. Chard, spinach mustard, chinese cabbage, snap beans, winged beans, broccoli, cauliflower, eggplant, snow peas, cilantro, parsley, sweet potatoes, frying peppers, and tulsi. Plus the chickens contributed 6 eggs!
Some volunteers focused on digging out the grass. The stolens go waaaay down, in places 8 to 10 inches. It makes is difficult getting them out. Many get overlooked, so the grass comes back. But over time we finally get rid of it. It just takes time and perseverance. A fairly good sized patch got degrassed, and taro and yacon went in.
The baby ducks are getting more friendly. They are still leary of us, but they are willing to come over for food and water while we stand there. Not trusting us, they watch carefully, expecting any moment we will turn into duck eating wolves I'm sure.
We are ready to spray the upper pasture with vinegar again, but alas we are not sure if we have enough to do it all. To date we have not be able to find a regular source for 20% vinegar, so it is hit or miss (mostly miss) trying to get our hands on it. But we shall wait for a brilliantly sunny day and spray what we have. At least the pasture grasses are no longer growing and are actually shrinking in height. So soon we will start weedwacking it. Yes, expanding the garden not only takes labor, but also time.
The group is looking forward to a bigger garden. They have all sorts of pie in the sky dreams of what they will be growing in the coming months. .......amaranth, quinoa, wheat, rice, cotton, pumpkins, more gourds, stock corn, sweet corn, mangels, sugar beets, etc. All these in addition to the rest tat we have already been growing all along.
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