Hello Stranger! With less heat and more rainy days, everything in the garden has doubled or even tripled in size. Downsizing the big field has been one of the best decisions. Keeping up with weeding is a lot easier this year. I now have enough time for hoeing the soil around the plants regularly, which is extremely important for their growth. I notice immediate positive changes with my plants after each hoeing session. It helps loosen the compacted soil around their root system and provides them with more oxygen and room to grow.
The rain also can cause some damage. It ‘melted’ the hardened soil away, exposing some of the root vegetables. In this case, onions and beetroots. I had to go over all of the rows with the hoe and cover them up again so that they don’t dry out. The rain also smashed the onion leaves down to the ground. So I tried my best to carefully lift them a bit. So far they still appear to be green and growing as they should be in August still.
One of the hardest parts of organic gardening is keeping the pests at bay. When I was looking up natural, clean solutions for it, there weren't many that worked well. I was surprised to see people recommending using dish soap solutions when dealing with cabbage caterpillars. What the…? Dish soap also contains chemicals and when using them on plants, of course, they will absorb that the same way they absorb water. It makes no sense to me. Instead, I keep my cabbages under frost covers and regularly check them for caterpillars. I do find them now and then even with the covering, but I have managed to keep my plants healthy. It is a hassle to take the covers off and put them back each time I want to check on the cabbages, or loosen the soil around them, or water them, but I just arm myself with a bunch of patience and do it anyway. I am determined to succeed and so far it is looking pretty good.
But now Pūciņa invites you to walk with us through the garden to see the progress for yourself! Purr
Bell peppers are now fully grown. Interestingly, the ones planted in the tiny greenhouse are a lot bigger in size than the ones planted on the “outdoors” bed with no cover. It could be a coincidence or the difference in the variety, but even the black ones that should yield decent-sized peppers are turning out quite small which makes me think that they still prefer a more greenhouse-like environment.
Out of all zucchini seeds, only one sprouted. It is perfectly fine though because it has quite many flowers and is producing a fair bunch of them!
The raised beds filled in nicely with herbs and greens. The empty spots are where spinach and one variety of salad leaves were. I could have resowed them, but I think right now would be a bit too close to the end of the growing season. Or maybe I will build little roofs for each bed and cover them with the frost cover material. That’s an idea!
Look at that spikey Milk Thistle monster! It is just as huge as I remember and I am glad I left it just enough space in its corner of the box. Parsley also has quadrupled in size, and calendula flowers, which weren’t even visible yet in the previous post, are about to bloom.
Basil has flowers now too. It is one of my favorite herbs and scents ever!
The dill forest. They share the box with asparagus and at this stage, they look like distant cousins.
There you go, like I mentioned in the previous post, cucumbers do take over all the free spaces surrounding them. We have harvested many 10 liter buckets of cucumbers by now and consume them in fresh salads, as well as canning them into pickles, and pickle salads for winter.
The Strawberry patch needs to be maintained regularly or it turns into an absolute jungle with new strawberry plants popping up even on the walkways, and of course, weeds and grass are also trying to sneak in.
The second cucumber bed is also filling in. I sowed one bed earlier and the second one a few weeks later. This way once the first one is finished producing, the second one will only start.
I am gathering a bunch of herbs such as mint, basil, lavender, and other wild medicinal plants for drying. I might write about it in the future to a greater extent, and explain my process and uses for them. It feels like one of the witchiest/pagan shaman-like things I do. Sneak peek below!
Let’s follow Pūciņa to one of her favorite hangout spots, the big greenhouse! What do we have here? Tomatoes! A whole tomato forest kingdom. She loves the tomato energy and often sits on the ceiling planks and enjoys the greenhouse warmness.
Meow, everything looks in order here!
I have learned that my new lavender plants appear to be of the early variety and also smaller in size than the previous plants I had. It is good to know this for harvesting next year.
On the left side, we can witness the monstrosity of what the big field would look like without weeding xD It is wild, isn’t it?
We have managed to keep it tidy enough though and the cabbages are hiding underneath the white frost covers right there! Here we also have carrots, beetroots, onions, zucchini, pattypan squash, and sad-looking beans that most likely won’t yield much, unfortunately.
These are bell peppers. The top image is the ones that grow under the cover and the bottom image is of the ones that grow under the skies with no cover. I wonder if the second ones would have been bigger if they also had the cover. Maybe not.
Hey! Paws off of my veggies! Time to grab a bucket and harvest some!
Not bad, huh? It is ok to pick bell peppers and tomatoes even before they have turned into the right colors, but remember, you need to keep them in a cool place, or they will start to wilt quickly.
That is where we are at with our garden so far! Also, isn’t Pūciņa the cutest kitty?
Song of the day: TXT - LO$ER=LO♡ER
Wow - everything look sgorgeous. Particularly interested in the 'shaman' things you do!
Thank you so much @riverflows! I am really pleased with how the garden turned out this year. At first I was a bit skeptical since I started quite late due to health problems, but the nature blessed me with plants strong enough and they seem to be living their best lives.
I am drawn to nature when it comes to healing and interestingly in my culture we have a lot of traditions when it comes to wild plants being used for healing purposes. I am happy to hear that someone would be interested in those things. That gives me more motivation to dive deeper about it in a post soon :)
On top of having a beautiful garden which you have managed to keep well maintained, you cat looks amazing, and those photos many would have a hard time believing you are not a pro photographer.
I don't think I will ever be into farming, used to do it at my grandmothers place while I was younger but never really got into it, but I love reading and just going through what others are doing in their gardens.
Keep at it, it is worth the effort!
Cheers!
Aww. Thank you so much for your kind words @my-musings! It brings me joy to work in the garden and to take care of my plants and to see them flourish. It is almost meditative and I get to spend more time in the nature and in fresh air which I am so grateful for.
Pūciņa is very special to all of us here at our household. She has a very loving personality and has quite many quirks. I am lucky to capture them in the photos from time to time. Every time I go do my gardening works, she is following me around and observes. I think she senses that I am happy to be with my plants and that I love taking care of them. I definitely am not a pro photographer, hehe! Thank you for the compliment! I am still just pointing and shooting but I am quite visual person maybe that helps a bit. Pūciņa is a perfect model too! It is impossible to take a bad photo of her!
I think my love for gardening comes from my grandmother. She definitely had the green thumb, it was natural for her.
It is so cool that you still love reading about gardening and appreciate it! Thank you for your comment and visiting my blog!
I will. I am learning with each year more and more :)
I really enjoyed this post!
It looks like your greenhouses are doing really well this year.
The frost cover seems like a good idea to keep the cabbage moths away from the plants so they can't lay eggs on the cabbages.
Thank you so much @amberyooper! I am so glad you enjoyed my post! Yay! :)
The greenhouses have turned into quite a jungle! I changed the soil in both of them in the spring, perhaps that helped too. I added some black, nutrient rich soil in there. The tomatoes are reaching the ceiling in the big greenhouse and I don't remember seeing such strong vines before. And so many peppers too in the tiny greenhouse. Really a success. I am so happy!
Ahaha! They sure tried to lay eggs on the frost covers too xD I found a bunch on the covers. And in the beginning I used covers that ripped easily, moths found the holes and got in now and then, but significantly less and I was able to keep up with finding them in time so that my cabbages would not be harmed too much. I will make sure to take some pictures for the next post of them too. It dawned to me now that I forgot to do that in this post xD
mraauuuu 🐾😻
@tipu curate :)
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Hehe, I am glad you liked the little paw photo! ^^ I am so happy to capture the way she expresses her personality. She is really amazing kitty!
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