Gardening Lessons

This year, I put aside a decent chunk of our backyard beside the house for a garden.  I planted a ton of stuff - basically I used a lot of my chicken litter as filler for the soil, to give it extra nutrients, and then set out to planting.  I did four tomatoes, 6-7 peppers of varying types, a broccoli, a cauliflower, two squashes and then two string bean plants.

The tomatoes seemed to do the best overall - in fact, maybe it was the chicken litter but they were easily 2-3 times as big as my neighbors, and started churning out tomatoes in mid summer!  I tried romas, a couple heirlooms, and then a classic big red.  The romas did pretty well until late July/early August, and then I think the heat and dryness while I was in Hawaii and Portugal did them in.  Right now I'm down to the two closest to the yard (and probably the sprinkler) - they seemed to take a breather in August, though now have more tomatoes appearing again.

Peppers were a mixed bag.  My hot peppers did quite well - the chilis, jalapenos, moles, and banana peppers.  My green peppers are coming in now, though not very many.  My colored sweet peppers did not though - I had a red, a purple, and a yellow and all of those struggled very badly and it seemed like the fruit would rot a bit before they were even ready.  Not sure why, if anyone knows please advise!

The broccoli grew, but more weedy than I expected.  The fruit wound up being closer to broccoli rabe than a head of broccoli, and not very tasty.  I'm not sure if I did something wrong, or I need to prune it, or what happened there.  Probably not something I would plant again, nor would I try cauliflower again.

The squash did ok, and we got a few yellow squash in the fridge.  Unfortunately, all the rain and damp from the hurricane caused them to rot - so I lost both of those recently.  I think they'd do ok next year, but I should move them to a drier spot in the yard where the rain isn't likely to pool and cause damage.  Of all my plants, those seemed the most vulnerable to exess water.

My herbs all did very well, the basil so much so that I often wound up throwing out half of what I harvested because we couldn't eat it all.  In another year or two, the rosemary will own half my current plot!  The sage I think was ok, though overshadowed by how big my tomatoes grew.

And of course, the girls are all well and now all four are laying again.  We did lose one of them this summer - reasons unknown, Ian just went out and found her out there one morning, but without any sign of predator attack or problem.  She was the largest of our girls, so I honestly think it was heat-related.  The bigger the bird, the harder it is for them to stay cool in the heat - we won't really ever know for sure, but that seems to make the most sense.  Two of my girls went broody in the hottest months, the Buff Orpington and one of my Cuckoo Marans.  In the future, I won't go with another Orpington - they're a bit loud, and definitely prone to broodiness.  Swiss Miss, my Spitzhauben, is totally rocking the roost though - she's my best layer, and also the smartest chicken by far.  The only downside to a Spitz is that they lay white eggs, and everyone always wants the brown eggs now.

So, what would I do differently next year?  For one - I think I would skip planting beans - they really grew to cover a lot of real estate, and the yield, even with two plants, was never really enough to provide a side dish for Ian and I before they went bad.  So given a limited space, I'd skip those.  The tomatoes, I would definitely do again - but clearly, I need to space them out better so I can make sure each one has enough space to grow and produce. I can't believe how big they got!  Peppers, I'll probably do a couple and just stick with the greens, they seem the hardiest.  Squash I want to try again, but I'll have to find a different area.  Finally, I think I will stay with the hot peppers too, but possibly pot those so I can bring them inside at the end of the season.  And of course, the girls just need periodic yard forage trips, plenty of food and water, and a periodic treat of bread of snacks from the house.

Shifting Gears

Right then - so the Big Summer of Travel is over now - thankfully, in some ways - and there aren't any current trips on the horizon.  That's good, because I can use a bit of a break.  In fact, I know I have some travel burnout as I was invited to a conference for work in Singapore at the end of October, and not only did I fail to leap at the chance, but actually find myself wondering if I'd even want to go at all.  Singapore!  I've never been there and it's supposed to be fantastic, but I am just plumb tired.

That said though, I think writing is a good exercise for organizing thoughts and communicating a bit.  I vastly prefer it to Facebook, honestly.  The more I try to be on Facebook, the less I like it.  But I do like writing - sharing some of the things I work on, finding topics to describe, explain, draft out, etc.  So I'm going to try and keep this, but I might repurpose it a bit for now to be more about crafting.  I've always been a crafter, and as the days get a bit cooler and fall begins, I really feel the desire to hunker down and make stuff!

On that note, I want to quickly toss up some notes (largely to myself if I'm being frank) about my gardening efforts this summer, so I know what to tackle next year.  Then from there, on to other crafts!