Mid-July 2014 in the garden
The last vestiges of
spring are coming out of the garden this week and next. A few
small cabbages are lingering in unneeded corners, and I just pulled out
the kale, arugula, and poppy plants after harvesting their seeds.
I probably should harvest all of the spring carrots, too, but there's
not really room for them in the fridge due to the dozen cabbages
currently chilling and waiting to be souped, so I've just been pulling
orange roots as needed for the last few weeks.
Of course, the summer
crops fill most of my attention at this time of year, both in the garden
and in the kitchen. But we've already started on fall crops, too,
setting out broccoli, cabbage,
and brussels sprouts and direct-seeding carrots and peas. Since
fall crops often germinate poorly during hot, dry weather, one of my
most important tasks at this time of year is remembering to drop back by
the fall beds a week or two after planting, reseeding as necessary.
The other thing I try
(and often fail) to remember in the height of summer is to make notes on
my gardening spreadsheet about what we planted too much of. For
example, we've had so many excess cucumbers and summer squash for the
last few years that I've had to give them away by the basketload, and
yet I keep planting the same amount. Maybe I'll remember to only
plant half as many cucurbits in 2015?
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About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.
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