Death To Zombies

Since we’ve finally had a dry spell, I’ve been able to make some progress in the garden.  I transplanted 12 green bell peppers and 6 jalapenos into the garden.  I ripped out the arugula that had gone to seed.  Then I harvested all my spinach.  I didn’t get as much out as I wanted.  I wanted to produce 12# this year and I only got out 1.75 but that was due to me not preparing enough space for new plants before the heat came on.  I may be able to make up for it in the fall.

I also managed to get some fertilizer put in and replaced the two sunflower plants that never sprouted due to all the wetness.  I dug a large watermelon and cantaloupe patch but I need some more rain to incorporate the fertilizer and calcium I amended the soil with.  After that I’ll wrap it all in black plastic and put the plants in.  I’ll have to concentrate on early varieties since I’m planting late.

Since it’s June I’ve started my fall broccoli and cabbage indoors.  I’ll plant the kale indoors soon.  I’ve started a ton of flowers indoors, Black Eyed Susans, Morning Glories, Salvia and Purple Coneflower.  I’m going to run the Morning Glories along the fence so I don’t have to run the weed whacker as much.

My Swiss Chard is coming along nicely and my Fennel is looking very nice after I weeded them aggressively during all the rain a week ago.  The rain barrel is really helping me in the garden because my outside faucet froze up this winter and I had to cap the line.  I need to finish setting up my 200+ gallon tote.  I got the ball valve in the mail, but I need to elevate the tote a bit more.  I didn’t understand why I saw some other people using rail road ties to elevate theirs until my small scale 55 gallon barrel started to get low on water.  It’s hard to get the last third of water out of the barrel when it’s too close to the ground.

My first plantings of Radishes are all ready to be consumed and I’ve planted more than I can eat.  But I’ve started to harvest them anyhow, just so that I can start the next plantings of them.  I’ve got 8 tomato plants out.  I wanted to get 16 put in, but again I haven’t prepared enough space for all of them.  Woulda, Coulda, Shoulda…

The potato plants are coming along nicely although I’m not sure how ugly the potatoes are going to be since I planted in an area where theres a lot of gravel in the soil.  The soil in the rest of the garden is definitely coming along nicely though.  It is absolutely easier to dig and weed this year, so that investment in peat moss, compost and sand have definitely paid off.  I’ll keep amending the soil aggressively in future years.

My plastic fencing I bought last year broke down in just one season and the dogs and rabbits were easily getting into the garden.  So I’ve finally buckled down and invested in some true metal fencing and more T-posts.

The good news is that I’ve invested probably 80 hours into planning exactly what my nutritional needs were for the full year and then extended that into determining how much I need to plant and how large the garden needs to be.  It appears to be around a fifth of an acre will need to be planted.  That’s big, but that includes a ton of berries, wheat, oats, dark green veggies, orange veggies and a ton of my favorites Arugula and Bell Peppers.

So I’ve been intending to grow Swiss Chard for years but this is the first time I’ve succeeded.  It appears to be a pretty easy leafy green to grow and it tolerates the heat more than Arugula.  I planted two patches of it and the one that was well weeded grew steadily and the one that needed more weeding grew at 1/3 to 1/2 the pace of it’s competitor.  I’ve fixed the weed problem now by removing many weeds and mulching with chopped leaves.

Another nice thing bout Swiss Chard is that you just harvest a few leaves from each plant and it continues to replenish.  Even better, you don’t need scissors or a knive.  Just snap ‘em off and take ‘em to the kitchen.  The only downside is that, like spinach, when you cook it down it rapidly reduces as it loses moisture.  So an entire bunch of Swiss Chard(about 16 leaves I’d say) produce 1 cup of cooked greens which is 2 servings.  They’re really nutritious servings but it’s something to keep in mind when you grow it.

I’m trying to track how much food I intake each year in order to predict how much to stockpile and how much to grow.  You’re now going to see a steady tally at the bottom of each post even if I don’t blog specifically about what I ate that day.

Produced and eaten since 6/1/2011:

1/2c Swiss Chard

Supplemented by store bought:

1 clove garlic

2T olive oil

pinch crushed red pepper