Wednesday, August 24, 2011

Garden Updates, August 23rd

As you can see from our harvests, our little fig tree is an amazing producer


Here's a view of the little fig tree" that can" It's about 7' tall and about as wide. It's an unbelievably small tree for the amount of fruit it supports
Here's our Zucchini bush that keeps going. It grew out and is now resting on a path.
Here is a sweet potatoes and corn bed. Trying this companion planting to see if it works.  The concern is, corn is a very nitrogen hungry plant, yams are not. Yams supposedly don't produce well in their tubers if you supply too much nitrogen. All you get is leaves. So, currently we are only giving compost to the corn's "feet" and not the sweet potatoes.  Let's see how it turns out!
Cucumbers, which I train the vines almost daily
A view from one angle. There's Kabocha pumpkin in the bottom left, carrots and onion bed in the middle, okra on the left side mid area, 
Okra
Peppers
Lettuce hiding in the shade
Burdock and Amaranth
Onto the front garden: This is the divide between our neighbor and us. Asparagus was planted earlier. Now we have Corn, Bush Beans, Dill and Cosmos growing there.
These Fuji's are looking mighty fine!
Satsuma Mikan (mandarines)
"Alauria" the peach tree gifted from our neighbor is growing pretty well. We've had a few problems at first, peach tree borers which lay eggs on the branch tips and the larvae bore their way into the new branches. I just kept pruning off the infested parts and boiling them before throwing them in the compost. We'd also had white mildew but we stopped watering so much and the problem went away. Under the peach tree, I have a rare purple sweet potato growing.
This is the Haas Avocado. Under it I've planted some Royal Purple and Green Lake Bush Beans, Blue Basil, Purple Orach and some Cosmos. Two voluntary vines of sweet potato have also sprouted, since we had planted them there last year. We're not sure if we have enough time for the Sweet Potatoes to properly grow tubers, but we're just letting it grow.  Maybe there's a streak of purple in me. Most of these plants have purple tones!
Here's one of the Akane Apples, we just have a few this year. I think 7 was the total. Last year we had 3.

5 comments:

BLD in MT said...

Whew! It looks like things are growing like mad! Oh, satsumas....what I'd give to have one of those right now!

Anne said...

You sure are having a great year!

Btw.. your seeds are drying. :)

AJK said...

Hi BLD! We're having a pretty good year, except for the Tomatoes (those da#&!* spider mites!). I'd hoped for more kabocha pumpkin but we got 15 pumpkins out of 3 vines so I guess that's not bad. We just don't have the luxury of space to grow the sprawling vines. Maybe trellising them would be the next step, go vertical if horizontal is lacking? But Pumpkins? They are heavy! But worth a try I suppose.

Hi Anne! Thanks, and YAY!! I'm so excited for those seeds! Let me know what you'd be interested (from my seeds). How exciting this is! :-D

GIRISH said...

Wow, reading about ur limited but magnificent farming activities was great ! I too do try growing various fruits & vegetables, in a limited quantity of course, on the small patch of land I have. Am living in a city, so space is a prob.

AJK said...

GIRISH, thx for dropping by. Any little bit helps cut down our dependence on oil. That's the goal, to leave as little a footprint on this precious planet. Keep gardening!