Monday, September 18, 2017

Garden Report September 2017

   This year's garden was smaller than usual on account of my arthroscopic knee surgery in the spring. Unable to kneel and unwilling to twist my back from a low stool, I planted everything from a standing position, digging trenches or small holes with various tools and dropping in seeds or plants, using the earthway rolling planter for beans. Thus several rows of dry beans: Kenearly, Light Red Kidney, Black Coco, King of the Early, Saturday Night Special, Flash, and Jacob's Cattle Gasless. Snap beans: Levi Robinson, Black Valentine, Rocdor, Pension, Provider. Some of these I planted so that I'd have viable seed going forward: Saturday Night Special, Flash, and Pension. Fedco has dropped Black Valentine from their catalog, while Black Coco is on offer only every few years because of crop failures; evidently it is hard for their growers to get a good crop although I don't find that to be so myself. Johnny's dropped Pension, but this is a vigorous, tasty, flat-podded green bean. No tomatoes this year, but I did plant broccoli, potatoes, cabbage, chard, lettuce (seed tape), beets (seed tape), and cucumbers. On account of a spell in which almost no rain fell for six weeks (mid July through August), the cucumbers failed and the broccoli was stunted; the potatoes were small but the beans tolerated the weather well. I can't irrigate from my well because many years ago when I tried, it stressed the well--evidently in this ledgy island, groundwater is not abundant. As usual, the September rains threaten the beans with mold, so I put under cover those plants that are half to mostly dry by now--most or all leaves fallen, the rest plucked off when I pulled them from the ground. Some kind of critter, probably a groundhog, got into the garden and ate up my first planting of dry beans, so I re-planted three rows two weeks later than I wanted, and now I must leave these in the ground to weather the rains. We'll see how they do; I'm not hopeful.

Sheepnose tree in bloom, May 2017



    The apple crop this year is only fair on account of the cold weather during pollination time. The spring was unusually cool, and the bees and birds didn't pollinate as they would have in a warmer year, even though blossoms were abundant. Still, some trees cropped fairly well, and I've gotten a decent lot of Red Astrachan, Anoka, and a wild apple that has Yellow Transparent in its makeup somewhere thus far. No cider making this year, but plenty of apples to eat thru the end of winter, with a fair crop of Liberty, Golden Russet, and Baldwin to come.

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