Hello Steemians. Today I am going to show you the portion of the 2011 Garden, which was constructed of tires and was in the center of the garden. Previously I showed the Design and Build and Raised Garden, Perimeter, and a Volunteer Honeydew.
As with most gardens, there were successes and failures. The successes of this portion of the garden were the herbs, okra, purple fava beans, and brassicas (which will be discussed in the next post). To reiterate the previous posts, the failures were almost all due to poor soil. At the beginning there was also an overwatering issue because I was not aware that the rate of drip the adjustable drip connectors on the automatic watering system was set for was too long, too many times a day. The overwatering created a fungus problem with these weird mushrooms sprouting in the potted orchard. The other plants had fungus gnats. Earwigs were just about in every planter. That was (not) FUN!! Once the overwatering was corrected and traps set for the pests, things turned around for the better. Additionally, I planted too many things in too small of spaces. You live and learn, right?
Okay, shall we get on with the garden tour?
The tire planter on the raised bed beside the house had herbs. They were shaded from the morning sun and the watering was just right for them. Grown from seed was curly parsely, basil, Genovese basil, chives, oregano, and thyme. Due to overcrowding the chives and oregano didn't grow as big as I'd hoped. The thyme was completely smothered out.
Here is the crop of bush beans. They grew okay, although the crop was not very big. Again, poor soil and planting too many for the area.
Struggling tomatoes, bolted stevia, happily producing beans, and a very happy okra.
The magnificant standard okra plants were just starting to grow like crazy. In that tire 3 plants were grown from seed. The plants could have grown taller, as I think the poor soil was stunting the growth. Planting 3 in the tire did not help, either. The summer heat during the hottest time of the day made the leaves a little droopy, but it always perked back up overnight into the early morning hours.
The 4 tires next to the double stack of large tires took a long time for me to fill. Life. There were old mattress springs laying around from the junk the previous owners left in the yard that was saved with the intention of using for a trellis. That idea was scrapped because of the rust. Here you can see the first okra flower.
In this picture the 4 tires in the center were mostly bare because the seeds hadn't taken off yet. In them marigolds, cilantro, brussel sprounts, and broccoli were planted from seed.
I planted store bought shallots and onions in some of the pots because they started sprouting in the fridge. They never produced onions. I did get wonderful flowers which eventually produced seeds, not knowing at the time that they were biannual plants. That means the first year they produce the bulbs we eat and the second year they produce flowers.
The peach tree on the opposite corner was not doing great, either, with yellowing leaves, likely because it was also overwatered. It ended up having a lot of leaf drop but grew back, later flowering during the beginning of fall. Fall in California is much like spring in temperate climates, such as where I am now in Missouri.
Happy Okra beginning to produce a lot. I ended up picking 3 large gallon bags of chopped okra. Sort of too much for me, honestly. If I would have pickled them I would have eaten them all, but one bag of them retired to the compost.
Obviously, the bush beans began yellowing. I decided to pull them to plant something else. The tomato plants were barely hanging on at this point.
On the West side of the raised garden I had 3 tires along the chain-link fence. I tried growing cucumbers and yellow squash. All three failed miserably. The cucumber did start climbing the trellis, however, it did not produce any full sized cucumbers, as all the small ones turned yellow and fell off. Oh well!
The yellow squash leaves grew fairly well at first but then started turning yellow. I don't remember getting any squash and pulled them to try something else. Another overcrowding situation. I planted 3 of each in an 16" diameter area. Oops.
Overview of the center of the garden mid summer after the bush beans had been pulled to make room for kolrabi. The brussel sprouts, broccoli, marigold, and cilantro, had finally sprouted.
In the corner I tried growing tomatoes in the large terra cotta colored planter and the black one beside it. A few handfuls of yellow pear tomatoes and only 3 patio tomatoes were harvested. However, the 3 patio tomatoes were half eaten by something before being picked.
Between the herbs and the yellow pear tomato was the stevia plant discussed in the last post. You can see how it'd bolted. This picture was before it was chopped and dropped.
One of the 3 brussel sprouts made it, eventually growing fairly well. The kolrahbi in the planter was where the bush beans were previously growing were doing quite well. You can't see the broccoli here, but it was doing well. I will discuss the brassicas in the next post.
The marigold got pulled because it started dying. I thought I planted majoram there. Later, it looked and smelled like oregano so I wasn't sure if I planted the wrong seeds. The Cilantro very quickly bolted from the summer heat. It was flowering and already producing corriander seeds.
After the okra plants were spent I planted the purple fava beans. Did already say that I was just willy-nilly planting things without learning about the plants first? I thought the fava beans were a type of climbing bean which was why I left the okra stalks, rather than chopping them. Nope! They grew straight up. No staking required. I'm not sure why they did so well but they were happy.
Here they have grown as tall as they would get, beginning to produce beans. There are a couple of large purple kohlrabi leaves hanging out in the picture.
To keep off the fungas gnats from the cucumber planters I made a little fruit and vinegar trap between the okra stalks. It took care of the problem.
The purple fava beans were almost ready. That didn't stop me from picking most of them prematurely. They could have stayed on the plants longer to plump up more but not even knowing what the heck a fava bean was, I thought they were getting too big. Nonetheless, they made a nice addition to a rice casserole.
The moral of today's post is don't overwater, don't crowd the plants, and pull sad plants to make room for happy plants.
ONCE AGAIN, HERE IS THE DESIGN I TRANSLATED INTO A C.A.D. DRAWING
As a recap:
What I am PLANNING to do is chronicle memories and experiences from childhood through adulthood that will tie all of the elements in life which have molded this convoluted variety in interests into the ultimately cohesive path towards permaculture and homesteading. Concurrently will be a series of Gardening/Sustainability/Homesteading/Permaculture specific posts with tons of pictures documenting my progression from 2011 to 2017. Thank you for sticking around till the end. I hope you will enjoy these short stories.
For reference, here are the previous posts:
STORIES:
BAREFOOT IN THE BOONIES: EXPOSING MY ROOTS (introduction post)
BAREFOOT IN THE BOONIES: Chapter 1
BAREFOOT IN THE BOONIES: FAMILY OWNED: Chapter 1 Section 2
2011 GARDEN:
2011: DESIGN AND BUILD
2011 BACKYARD TRELLIS, PERIMETER, & VOLUNTEER
TO BE CONTINUED...
That's all for now. Until the next post... If you found this post enjoyable, please consider upvoting, resteeming, following, and commenting! Thank you kindly for reading.
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