Fennel Companions

• potatoes
• tomatoes

Middle of Summer garden

This summer garden was a mixture of successes and failures. The basil turned out beautiful and I was able to dry out enough to fill my Sams jar! The key to basil is constant harvesting. The more often you harvest, the bigger the plant grows.
We harvested quite a few cucumbers. I learned, although cucumber may be green one day, you must fertilize and tend to these plants on a weekly basis.
The one Zucchini grew beautifully! We were able to harvest over 6 off of the one plant.
I planted the tomato plants so many times, I have lost count. They do not appreciate NC summers. The heat, rain, humidity fluctuates to much for them. I will try next year to start them indoors and transfer them outside.
I have yet to harvest any bell pepper. Pepper plants need to be planted in the middle of summer or started indoors because they love warmth.
Onions
That is all I can think of. I know I planted a few more plants, but they were either unsuccessful or escape my memory at the moment.

Dill, Bouquet Companions

• asparagus
• broccoli
• brussels sprouts
• cabbage
• cauliflower
• kohlrabi
• chervil
• corn
• cucumber
• lettuce
• onion

Zucchini, Cucumber, and Honey Dew. OH MY!

Cucumber flower

Zucchini Flower

Honey Dew and Cucumber

Zucchini

These three plants have many similarities in look at least.You may remember back in July I had a hard time telling the plants apart. Once the leaves grew larger, their shape was easier to distinguish, but I soon discovered they all grew yellow flowers, as seen in the pictures above.
Aside from the Honeydew, the veggies are similar in color as well. Out of the 20 zucchini only one plant provided us with produce. The Cucumbers were doing amazing, but got drenched by the summer rains. They require a lot of fertilizer and spray from bugs. Out of the three honeydew plants we got two honeydew.
Overall I believe it wasn't a bad result for my first try.

August 23, 2014

My SD is broken, so phone pictures will have to suffice for now. This mornings planting.

Fall Planting Schedule

Those of you who follow my blog regularly know I am planting according to the lunar cycle this year. Here are this month's dates:

Aug 11-25 Waning Moon = Below ground plants
Aug 26-Sept 9 Waxing Moon = Above ground plants

Plants for this month's planting:
carrots
onions
beets
peas
pumpkins
celery
lettuce
spinach
kale

My SD on my camera bit the dust, so there will not be regular posting of pictures at the moment. For the time being my posts will be sporadic and reflective mostly. I am hoping to summarize this year during the winter months.

Fall Plans

Fall in the Garden

My favorite time of year in the garden is fast approaching. Let me clarify. My favorite time of year is Summer, but when it comes to gardening it is fall. I find it easiest to plan and create my structures when everything is dying away and it is still decent temperatures outside.

I have huge plans as always for my yard. We'll see how much gets accomplished. First off the list of general chores I have during fall:

1. collect grass clippings (over 40 trash bags this year)
2. collect mowed leaves
3. collect burnt wood ashes (need to clean the firepit out first!)
4. collect pine needles (I wish we had more pine trees)
5. continue collecting chicken manure
6. continue collecting vegetables and fruit
7. continue collecting cardboard
8. collect coffee grounds
9. buy a huge bucket of epsom salt

These are the materials my lasagna layers consists of . My ultimate dream is to have a worm "farm", but we haven't quite achieved that step.

For the yard my plans are:

• add a new garden bed
• mulch all the fruit, nut, and flower trees
• mulch the bushes
• weed the front bed
• transplant and thin out the irises and cana lillies
• clean out the chicken coops
• design herb garden beds

Hopefully by fall I will have successfully propagated a few gardenia and blueberry bushes as well!

Cucumbers

Marketer  Cucumber

Marketer Cucumber

Dill Cucumber

These pictures make me sad. This was the last time the plant was healthy. They ended up dying off before I could harvest many. Cucumbers require a lot of fertilizer. They loved the soil I planted them in due to the fact that the chicken manure was at the bottom of the compost pile, but alas the rain!!!! This time of year the rain we receive from the costal hurricanes dumps right on our location. We have the greenest grass in the region, but it also bodes ill for our corn and cucumbers.

I have yet to figure a way to keep these plants well fertilized and healthy during these rain storms. They don't have time to dry out. For this fact, bugs, mold, washed away fertilizer, and lack of sun was the demise of these beauties.

Basil Results

Basil

I can add Basil to my meager list of plants I grow successfully. So far, the easiest crops for me here in NC are:

• Peas
• Beans
• Basil

Quite a small list, but at least it is better than no list! Basil is great companion for many plants in the garden. From experience, I can tell you to pick off that big leaves. This is key to getting a big plant. Basil likes to be pruned continually.
The leaves you pinch off can be dried and stored for spicing up your pizza sauces and such. I love sweet basil because it has such an aromatic smell to it.

Summer blooms

Bee collecting pollen