Pat's Garden

Well as if I didn't have enough to weed, the doctor says "Exercise.  Work up a sweat Pat."  I heard what he said as "its time for some new deep beds", so out comes the shovel a rake, the dirt screen, a saw, some fence from Agway,  some cheap lumber (Ledger Board, 16 feet 8" x 3/4" $7.20 at Home Depot)  What is ledger board usually used for anyway?).  Beats paying to use an air conditioned gym.

I grabbed an unused 19 foot by 18 foot plot behind our condominium's work shed and got to work.  There's not a whole lot of topsoil, about 10-12 inches over sand and rock.  With all that sand underneath, he plots are at least well drained.  

I dug out all the weeds and soil and put the clods and dirt through the screen.  By doing that I hope to have fewer weeds to deal with.  I composted everything from the plot, weeds, roots and all and now have a nearly 3x3 pile about 2 feet high.  Yeah I know the roots are probably a bad idea, especially because my brand new compost thermometer reads only just over 90 farenheit.  You really need a hot pile to kill stuff and even then roots might survive.  Anyway this pile just isn't heating up.  I'm probably going to have to rebuild it right.

The first new bed has some melon and cukes coming along nicely.  They're about 6" plants now.  The other cukes I had have died back due to hot weather and not diligent enough watering and maybe runoff when I did water.  I did these differently, and made a depression to hold the water and covered the row with garden fabric.  To water, I just flood each depression to about an inch or two deep every two days.  So far the plants look healthy.  I'll probaly add row cover soon.

The second bed, with the dirt from the now lowered path added  is raised 12 inches above the path using the ledger board.  I've lined the paths with some leftover 1" thick cement bricks and the stone I screened out of the loam.  The bricks and stone are installed over garden cloth to keep down weeds, the same cloth I'm using for mulch in the two older plots.

I left this bed wide enough and long enough to take two 4x4 foot cold frames over the winter and I'm putting in greens: orach, broadleaf cress and watercress, also small turnips, kohlrabi and cilantro.  When it gets cold, I'll just plop on the cold frames.

The new plot also has some beans that are doing well and the snow peas along the new fence are just coming up.  Its still 90 degrees each afternoon but that should'nt last.  This is New England... Don't like the weather? Wait a few minutes....

Meanwhile in the other two similarly sized plots, all this distraction and excercise in the new plot has been a good excuse to ignore the weeds.  I'll have to leave the new plot for a few days and get after them tomorrow!

I'm getting zuchinni, tomatoes, eggplant, pepper, kohlrabi, Basil, Spagetti squash, Carrots, Lettuce, tomatillos and beets.  The onions are all havested and used up for cooking.

Tonight Annie's making rattatouille (Eggplant, Tomato and Zuchinni!)


Time for dinner!

-Pat
 Acton Ma USA
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