Gardenjournal 2018 - October
I've been thinking about a garden blog for months and i think it's finally time to write my first post. This is mainly motivated by @simplymike and the Steemit Community Garden Journal Challenge.
October was pretty golden this year with lots of sunny days but fall is inescapable so it's time for the last harvests:
There're still some peppers left to harvest but i will leave them in the garden as long as we dont get any frost. In my opinion it's better to pick them fresh from the plant when you need them.
I'm also trying to grow some winter lettuce but the results are quite unsatisfying. Not sure if it's too cold already, but i run into the same problem every year. There's not a lot of sprouting going on. At least the purslane seems to be doing ok.
I also needed more space on my compost pile to dump all the cleanups from my garden so i checked how my first batch of compost was doing and decided it was ready to be used for the garden:
I used most of it for my asparagus because next year will be the first full harvest after 3 years of unmolested growing so i want it to get all the nutrients it needs.
There are also some baby asparagus plants that grow randomly in my garden. Usually in between the paving stones. Those got filled up with compost as well.
Laurel and sage got a haircut:
I'm also moving some rosemary and raspberry plants from my vegetable garden to another location. They just took too much space and grew all over the place. Most of them go in pots so i can put them inside while i wait for them to root.
This is part of the place where my raspberry plants will go, but first i have to remove all kinds of plants that grew there over the past years.
Poor little blueberry that was trying to grow under all the raspberry plants got a new home already:
The sweet potatoe clone got a warm and sunny place inside the house. Next year i will get all my cuttlings from this plant.
Tomatoes are done for this year so i removed them and put them on the new compost pile.
Which reavealed a whole lot of thyme that sprouted all over the place.
Speaking of compost: Starting with the left pile it's been growing over the past year and quadrupled it's size. You can't have too much compost.
The only thing left now is the asparagus green that needs to be cut once it's completely dead.
I hope i'll find the time for gardening and blogging next year. If so, i'll be back for Garden Journal 2019!
Nice post, @exator. I see some resemblance between your garden and mine, which makes me wonder where you are at.
The last ones standing in my garden are the sweet pepper plants. I agree that they're at their best when picked fresh, so I leave them there as long as possible.
I'm amazed by that laurel tree you have there. Our last one was just little bush when it died, so I planted another little bush this year. I didn't even know they could grow that big.
And how does the sweet potato-thing work? I mean, I just harvested all my green potatoes, because the greens had died. Did you just sprout a new sweet potato? Won't it grow very big by the time spring arrives? I never heard of overwintering sweet potatoes, so I'm very curious...
My garden is located in the upper rhine area.
The laurel is growing like a champ, maybe it needs even more cutting. I was hoping I could move it, because it's getting bigger and bigger, but I'm afraid I cant get it out of that stone it's growing in.
In Italy they use laurel as living fences.
I never had the greens die on a sweet potatoe. In fact I think sweet potatoes never stop growing, they just spread their tentacles and take root wherever they touch the ground. Unless they die from sub zero temperatures, of course.
Once I harvested the potatoes i just take one or two cuttlings from the massive amount of greens (some parts have roots already), pot them and keep them in the conservatory. Yes, they can grow pretty big but unless they get artificial lighting and tropical temperatures there's no chance they get too big over the winter. Next year I just plant it outside and take as many cuttlings from that plant as i want.