43 #tomatoes in. Bring the rain. Didn’t have the energy to tackle the #peppers. Maybe Wednesday between rainy days. The #fennel is the best looking I’ve ever grown. #BokChoy is bolting. 2/3 of the #broccoli starts have croaked. But, speaking of croaking, I encountered two adorable wee #toads that made me glad I was there. ❤️ Bless their warty little souls! Sorry no pix because gloves and chicken poo fertilizer and just hot and tired. #gardening#OrganicGardening#GrowYourOwn#SeedToTable
"Big or small, pot or plot - interconnected #gardens have a significant impact on #biodiversity. Even small #urbangardens offer high levels of nectar production, with 85% of the total #nectar produced across a city provided by them."
Around our raised vegetable beds, we have ~6" of dense decomposed granite on top of high-quality #weed barrier cloth on top of barest of bare dirt. And still the oxalis (sour grass, Bermuda buttercup, #Oxalis pes-caprae, goat's foot, soursop) comes up. It's even in the planting beds 20" higher than the decomposed granite. And we only installed the beds and dirt a couple of months ago.
We're using herbicides only very sparingly and not on this, but I'm so tempted.
(About the sandals: It was a little chilly today, long sleeves but no jacket. I wear sandals as long as there's no danger of frostbite.)
Teaming With Nutrients: The Organic Gardener’s Guide to Optimizing Plant Nutrition
Just as he demystified the soil food web in his ground-breaking book Teaming with Microbes, in this new work Jeff Lowenfels explains the basics of plant nutrition from an organic gardener's perspective. Where Teaming with Microbes used adeptly used microbiology; Teaming with Nutrients employs cellular biology.
Last week, when I bought a parsley plant at the garden center, I didn’t notice it had a swallowtail butterfly larva. She’s now a beautiful caterpillar and I’ve bought another parsley plant for her to eat! 🪴🐛 #VeryHungryCaterpillar #butterfly#OrganicGardening#bloomscrolling
Harvesting the seedpods of the winged pea (Lotus purpureus)
Next to the typical vegetables that we grow every year we always also try something new to learn and have more variety in our garden and on the plate. Since we live on an old farm, we like to try old forgotten species and varieties like these winged peas.
#introduction. Late to introducing myself. Permaculturist on small acreage in western Oregon. My farm is my retirement plan and the source of nearly all my inspiration. I still work in healthcare, and I do care deeply about peoples’ health, but people exhaust me. I am peaceful and happy here on the land. #permaculture. #nature. #organicgardening#selfsustainability
Photos are mine, taken on an old iPhone7 and usually feature small critters.
Every time a recipe calls for an obscure herb, I try to remember where I planted it. Today it was nigella seeds and I'm thinking I saw them by the tomatoes...🤔 The look of shock on the fam's faces whenever I say it's growing outside brings me joy. Lol.
I’m having a great time growing my own food. Now it’s time to try some greens I might have eaten, but certainly not heard off before. This is Red Frill Mustard. If you have tips about what dishes to put this in, let me know. I’m happy to hear about your experience.
King Midas, Carrots
I have had terrible luck with carrots this season with the weather but a few are finally starting to come up! Better late than never 🍾
Romanesco 🐚😵💫🌀
Such a gorgeous veg! All of the brassicas were supposed to come out last week to make room for the tomatoes but this guy decided he wanted to do his thing after all. Way too handsome to pull, so even though brassicas can inhibit root growth in tomatoes I’m going to wait and see what happens.
Peas!
My life (just my meals really) are very pea-centric right now. So so many snap peas.
It is wrapping up though, final harvests this week and then it’s pole bean season!
For now it’s pea pasta salads, pea stir fry’s, pea garden salads… 😂
Thornburn’s Terracotta Tomato 🍅
This has been the fastest growing, healthiest and most sturdy seedling, an unexpected treat!
I got the seeds for free with my purchase at Baker’s Creek Seeds. A few of my other tomato seedlings didn’t make it so I thought I’d give this a try, I think it’s going to be a great producer.
The tomatoes are supposed to have orange-brown skin with orange-pink skin and be medium in size.
Your annual springtime reminder that over 70% of native #bee species nest in the soil. Cavity-nesters like mason bees do better in urban systems because there are fences, shingles, siding, and rock walls to exploit, but when everything is paved over, thickly mulched, or blocked with weed cloth the tunnelers have nowhere to go. Even small patches of lightly planted or thinly mulched ground like this spot in my rain garden berm will quickly become inhabited. #UrbanGardening#Pollinators#Habitat#OrganicGardening#Insects
I FINALLY got my tomato starts in yesterday after all of this unusually cold weather and there will now be a short heat wave for the next 3 days 🤦🏻♀️🤦🏻♀️🤦🏻♀️
THEN the temp will drop 30 degrees and maybe lightening storms. This is getting quite frustrating.
Good luck little friends! I did put up an umbrella to shade them from them the afternoon heat, I hope that will be enough.
Powdery Mildew on peas 🙀
I didn’t do pest or disease control on my winter garden. So much rain 🌧️
I’m treating these peas because I have shelling pea seedlings starting in the same bed.
I used a hydrogen peroxide treatment that I learned on Gary Pilarchik’s YouTube channel. He’s great!
The ratio is 12 tablespoons or 3/4 cup of peroxide per gallon of water.