July garden: three beds have been cleaned of spring things and are resting up for fall planting. Two of these are slated to go underneath a polytunnel greenhouse. Note corn and winter squash at upper right. Knee high by the Fourth of July!
For Independence Days,
1. Plant something - Not a thing this week!
2. Harvest something - Zukes! ... turnips, turnip greens, favas, potatoes, dandelions, elephant garlic, onions, peas, chard, mustard, lettuce, spinach, strawberries, basil, chives, knotweed. Rhubarb, rhubarb, rhubarb.
3. Preserve something - blanched and froze fava beans. Putting up garlic braids, storing "new potatoes."
4. Reduce waste - Made an awning from recycled burlap coffee sacking.
5. Preparation and Storage - drying fava beans and kale pods for seed. Garlic, potatoes.
6. Build Community Food Systems - selling duck eggs; giving away veggies at work as conversation starters.
7. Eat the Food - From frozen: pear, apple and plum sauce, used to make reconstituted juice. From poultry: duck eggs, chicken soup. From storage: wheat, spelt, oats, rye, pasta, molasses. From garden: turnips, turnip greens, potatoes, zucchini (finally!), favas, elephant garlic, onions, kale, chard, dandelions, peas, lettuce, spinach, chard, strawberries, mint, basil, chives, still mostly peas.
Hi Risa! This blog looked lonely for comments, so here's mine.
ReplyDeleteDuring the early July heat wave, Tod and I were working on our minifarm. We worked 20 minutes ... rested 10 minutes ... worked 10 minutes ... rested 20 minutes. And so on. But the work got done--we must have dug out 20 blackberry crowns. I hooked up a drip watering system so the garden can be watered all at once. The corn is not yet knee high, but it is on its way. The cabbages are heading up, the onions are bulbing, we have flowers on the tomatoes and eggplants. Your bean seeds have produced hardy tall plants which are twining up the cattle-panel trellis and setting out scarlet flowers.
Later that evening, we sat on lawn chairs and watched the Harrisburg fireworks from across our grass field and drank lemonade. It was a good 4th of July.
Outstanding! I like your 4th a lot.
ReplyDeleteThat is slow work. I used to pull b-berries and other shrubby things with a tripod of tall t-posts, a dog-collar chain, and a come-along.
You need your M-F and a choker! Then it would go ever so much faster.