Communal Gardening

Breaking Soil

Mon, 26 Mar 2012 09:48:00 -0400

We broke soil two weeks earlier than last year. Sunday graced us with perfect weather - sunny, low winds, and 70s. Spent a few hours cleaning up the beds for spring planting. First round of carrots, beets, radishes, onions, and chard done. Dan may have more pictures to share than the one I linked above.

I took some pictures at the end of the season but they’ve...

Fri, 16 Dec 2011 18:22:15 -0500

Last big harvest of the year

Horned worm!

Giant leek!

Gavin planting garlic

Final garden sunset. See you next spring

I took some pictures at the end of the season but they’ve just been sitting on my comp while a bunch of more “important” [boring] things took precedence … Now is as good a time as any to finally get these posted

The last major harvest I took from the garden was (somehow) on October 11 (?!) — i guess that’s what they call an indian summer, which we’ll probably seeing a lot more of in coming years … You can see a bunch of tomatoes still (despite the best efforts of one very hungry horned worm), our Hungarian GIANT leeks, radishes, and lettuce. As late as a month after that we still had lettuce, chard, and kale.

The boys went out that same week and planted about 350-400 cloves of garlic. 400 heads of garlic seems like a good idea now but we’ll have to see if we bit off more than we can chew. It was good to finally make use of the rich soil in our 3rd plot, and Gavin had this bed fully prepared as well.

Some ideas for next spring ...

Fri, 16 Dec 2011 17:57:01 -0500

Some ideas for next spring ...:

Some awesome stuff here to potentially try next year … not that we need to be adding any NEW varieties

August update

Tue, 23 Aug 2011 15:01:45 -0400

After some early season enthusiasm, things have quieted down a little bit on the posting side. Summers are never as relaxed and full of free time as we’d like, and the best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men gang aft agley … in any case, summer is slowly (but too quickly) creeping toward fall, and we’ll soon start to see some new transitions in the garden plot. Another sowing of radishes, beets and lettuce last week, and we’ll try to get some fall chard and spinach in soon. Even though they are from a month ago now, here was the garden back in mid-July — this photo looks downright quaint compared to the current jungle of mid-August abundance.

This shot of our auxiliary plot gives you an idea of what a mess the squash and tomatoes have become … despite the crowding, great production and very little disease so far.

Our squash looked so cute and innocent then. Appearances can be deceiving (does anybody want some squash?)

And much to Brendan’s delight, the corn grew (at least 1.5 stalks did) and we managed 3 whole ears of corn.

Early fall garden photos coming soon!

Tomato titans

Sun, 21 Aug 2011 01:08:57 -0400

Tomato titans

Time to start work on that fall garden

Thu, 11 Aug 2011 15:19:00 -0400

More beets and lettuce! and garlic…

No big deal, just 11 pounds of tomatoes. A light harvest.

Wed, 10 Aug 2011 00:23:50 -0400

No big deal, just 11 pounds of tomatoes. A light harvest.

Tomatoes!!

Mon, 20 Jun 2011 11:04:49 -0400

Tomatoes!!

A few photos of the early June garden. Transitioning from...

Sun, 12 Jun 2011 15:50:00 -0400

Dill and lettuce, living harmoniously

Spinach almost ready to harvest

Corn coming up strong ...

As are squash on one mound

BK love this. Purslane=happy garden

A few photos of the early June garden. Transitioning from sowing/transplanting mode to weeding/harvesting/pest control mode. Luckily not too much of the latter yet. Purslane is starting to pop up in between rows and will make a nice addition to late spring salads.

Garden panorama 6.10.11 Photosynth!

Sun, 12 Jun 2011 15:35:00 -0400

Garden panorama 6.10.11

Photosynth!

Garden panorama 6.1.11 Click to interact on Photosynth

Thu, 02 Jun 2011 00:00:00 -0400

Garden panorama 6.1.11

Click to interact on Photosynth

Starting to look like a garden … Spinach and beets looking...

Wed, 01 Jun 2011 23:56:00 -0400

Starting to look like a garden … Spinach and beets looking strong, carrots are really growing, squash starting to pop up. Lettuce growing like gangbusters. Put in beans today on corn mounds so hopefully those guys will have a nice copacetic relationship.

Garden layout 5.22.11

Wed, 25 May 2011 22:32:00 -0400

I’m done with photoshop, this will have to suffice.

Plot #2. Three sisters and tomat(ill)os.

Garden Work Day

Tue, 24 May 2011 11:32:00 -0400

We put in a good work day on Sunday. Temperatures creeped into the 80s while we put in new support stakes, dug new trenches, and planted. Thom Hanks, one of Leo’s BFFs, supervised and approved of our late afternoon efforts.

Here’s what we got going on in our main plot. The tomatoes went in on Friday - Brandywine, Cherokee Purple, Green cherries. On Sunday we transplanted eggplant, Thai and sweet basil, Thai chiles and banana peppers, and also planted some bush cukes (picklemania 2011!!).

MG and I dug a couple of trenches for leeks.

Can you spot the volunteer dill? While not as robust as last year, we’re thankful they’re making a reappearance.

We’re looking forward to having a steady supply of lettuce mixes throughout the summer. There’s nothing like greens from the garden with some homemade vinaigrette.

Tomato plants and basil

B started a “zen” rock path.

Plot #2 (of 3). Yup. Waunona Gardens was generous to us this year and offered to give us two unclaimed plots. Combined, the two oddly-shaped plots roughly equals a full 20 x 20 plot. We’ll be using Plot #2 for three sisters, and more tomatoes/tomatillos. We’re also attempting to grow bitter melon so that we can cleanse our blood (as Vietnamese mothers will tell you). I picked up a couple of immature melons from the Asian market, made this, and saved the seeds. We’ll see if any bitter melons climb up the trellis.

Three Sisters mounds

Tiny Tomatillo plant

Plot #3, which is triangular shaped, is overrun with weeds at the moment. The long weekend ahead of us, which can’t come soon enough, will be a good time to tackle it and think of ways to use it. Perennial flowers, perhaps?

Click to interact on photosynth

Tomato supports

Tue, 10 May 2011 10:10:14 -0400

Brendan getting it done with some fence posts. With about 16 feet between the two sets of posts, we can probably get about 10 plants along the north side. Hopefully next week those go in …

Garden layout 5-1-11

Mon, 02 May 2011 18:03:00 -0400

Click to reveal! I forget what kind of spinach we planted. We were a little late seeding that so hopefully we get a few harvests before summer hits.

Opening day 2011

Sat, 30 Apr 2011 15:49:00 -0400

Good long (4.5 hours) day at the garden today. Picked up trash, marked off plots, lots of general clean-up and weeding. Looks much more like a garden now!

Our plot is fully weeded and straw is down so it will hopefully stay that way. Lettuce and radishes look robust, beets are coming along.

A few carrots are just starting to peek through, so hopefully those will be up this week. We re-sowed radishes and carrots, and also laid down a couple rows of spinach.

Spring and enthusiasm are (finally!) in the air

Full panorama view - Photosynth.

Garden layout 4-17-11

Tue, 19 Apr 2011 11:29:00 -0400

Cleared rest of quadrants, sowed carrots.

Weather

Tue, 19 Apr 2011 10:11:36 -0400

Last night we covered our plot with hay because we knew this was coming:

Current weather on this 19th day of April:

“33 degrees / Feels like 22 degrees / Light Ice Pellets Rain Mist”

In Wisconsin, we shouldn’t expect spring to be here until May. Wake me up when it’s above 40 degrees.

Spring gardening day 2. Weeded out the remaining 3 quadrants,...

Sun, 17 Apr 2011 23:09:00 -0400

from the NW

from the SW

Radishes popping up!

Spring gardening day 2. Weeded out the remaining 3 quadrants, loosened up some dirt, threw down some compost. Ready to put some plants out once Wisconsin decides winter is done. Also 3 rows of carrots today including COSMIC PURPLE. And we consumed the first edibles from the 2011 garden — micro radish greens. tasty!