The garden is producing a lot of vegetables right now, but there are also a lot of lessons coming up.
Rats!
One of the most shocking things to emerge this year have been furry little pests. The winter was really mild and there was an expectation that we might have lots of aphids, ants, caterpillars, cut worms, slugs and snails, but I hadn’t thought much about rodents.
Our shelling peas were the first target. In the evenings, I have been able to hear them literally crunching on the peas as I stood next to the raised bed. Ultimately, the damage was so severe, that I didn’t actually want to use the peas on the plants so we pulled them up without harvesting them.
In the meantime, we have placed some bait stations around and are going to have to try to monitor the situation carefully. I am not leaving duck food out at night, and I am trying to keep the compost pile turned so it won’t attract them,
Succession Planting
Beans and peas are excellent examples of crops that should probably be planted with an eye toward spreading out the harvest. Peas, we are probably planting too tightly, they are all the same variety and we end up with a cluster of extremely dense plants that need to be picked all at once.
We need to find a strategy to maximize the garden and to waste less. Here is a link I found with some suggestions I am reviewing:
https://www.thespruce.com/succession-planting-1403366
Pickling cukes
Last year’s crop of cucumbers was nothing to write home about. The plants struggled and produced few veggies. This year, we have no such problem, quite the contrary.
We planted our crop in half of a raised bed with fencing on either side to form a trellis, Whether it is the soil or the location, they are doing very well this year. We have already harvested more than 15 pounds of cucumbers and made a batch of pickles (Stay tuned for that post).
We ended up with nine plants and they are all in excellent health. Next year, I am sure we could do with only six plants if they are going to be this productive. This will give them more room to breathe and grow and it won’t be so overwhelming.
Okra
I am far more impressed with the delicate looking okra than I expected. The blossoms are really pretty, but not gaudy with just a hint of color. We planted ours in the same bed as the eggplant however they grow slower than the eggplant and so they have been stunted a little from being shaded out. Additionally, there is a bed of lemon cucumbers and sunstripe zucchini right next to them that us also supplying shade.
The eggplant seemed to manage all right because it got big enough fast enough to keep some foliage above the tops of the zucchini plant.
So far, neither the eggplant or the okra has produced anything we can harvest.
So there is a lot more to write about, but I need to call it a night.