2008 Garden and Composting Update

Hi fellow gardeners and composters,

You will notice that I have taken down the HCEP posts of the past month. I used this site as a temporary location where Master Composter Volunteers can share among themselves issues concerning the recent changes in the program. The blog has been inactive for weeks now so I will turn it back to its primary purpose which is to document status in my backyard garden. Please email me or comment on this post if you wish to discuss HCEP more. Note that there is a TAC meeting scheduled for July 10. I will attend that meeting and speak as a member of the public. Please comment or email if want to know more or if you would like to participate.

I haven't been updating this blog since late last year due to a very demanding work schedule. While the garden continues, as it has for the past 20 years, the documenting has not. I will give a quick verbal update here. I will try to post some pictures later.

For the most part, the garden has followed the 2007 program as documented last year. We had an awesome brassica this year. I harvested my last white, Fremont, cauliflower this morning ending a continuous production period which started in February. The cauliflower were late this year probably due to an unusually cool winter. But the wait was well worth it. I had several heads over one ft. in diameter. The green and orange cauliflower performed as well. I have one green cauliflower still producing a head. It will be harvested within two weeks.

And the broccoli was simply amazing. Harvest continues as it will until December. We only consumed a fraction of what the plants produced. I gave most away and some made it to the compost pile. Even now, two months after production began, I get more broccoli that we can use. Note that I plant Packman broccoli which will continue to produce for at least a year if it is consistently picked. You can't let it flower or the plant switches to bolting mode and quickly fades away.

I still have some cabbage in the ground and beautiful kale which includes Russian, Palm, and two other varieties which names I don't recall.

Peas also did well this year. Production started out with sugar snap and snow pea types in December followed by english shelling peas. The last batch of shelling peas are still producing.

The onions are finally bulbing nicely and will have to finish within the next three weeks to make way for the last batch of 90 day sweet corn. I have only the July planting of 90 day corn (see last year's blog) left for this year. All the other plantings are proceeding from just having come up (mid June planting) to less than three weeks from harvest (April planting). The April 60 day corn will be ready for harvest next week just as my freezer is emptying from last year's corn. Note that my goal is to have corn on the cob year around. It is fresh from July through early November and frozen through the winter till the following July. I freeze cob, husks, and all.

Bush beans and summer squash are now in full production. Papaya Pear squash is my favorite. It comes in early, is very stem rot resistant, and makes a really nice looking and tasty squash. I also have yellow scallop, zucchini, and a single hill of tromboncino squash. The last guy will take over a yard but can be eaten both as a summer and winter squash.

Winter squash is starting to vine all over and the pole beans are just starting to produce. But the shelling beans are the star of the summer. They are like weeds this year and loaded with pods. These are scarlet emperor runner beans and Cannelloni white beans.

Last year's carrots were awesome. I pulled the last just over a week ago completing a nine month production season. This year the carrots are struggling. I've had poor germination for some reason. I think it was due to the unusually cool winter and spring followed by three record breaking heat waves. But some are coming along now. We will see this fall.

Sweet peppers are just starting their celebration but egg plant continues to struggle which is unusual. And... we have been getting early tomatoes for two weeks now. The Roma tomatoes that I grow are loaded with fruit but none has turned yet. All the plants are close to full grown size and I am starting to prune them. Tomato prunings make for a nice nitrogen rich material for composting at a time when greens are starting to be in short supply.

Wildflower season is almost done. I have been composting the carbon rich drying plants for several weeks now. Sunflowers didn't get the proper attention this year due to my busy schedule and they are pouting as a result. I hope some perk up soon as I cherish an August walk among blooming sunflowers, and so do the humming birds.

Well, that's it for now.

Happy gardening,

danh