The Key

The key to growing healthy vegetables is healthy soil, and the best way to improve the health of your soil is with compost. There are probably as many theories on how to make compost as there are people who are making it.

In our backyard, we currently have three compost bins in various stages of decomposition. All of our kitchen vegetable scraps (no meat or dairy) go into the piles, along with weeds we've pulled around the garden. The green material is layered with brown material, usually dried leaves or grasses. I also add a bit of soil on top of the kitchen scraps, to get some micro-organisms to work on them right away.


Every few months I'll sift the finished compost out into a wheelbarrow, returning the larger pieces that haven't yet broken down to the pile. If it's early in the summer, let the compost dry on a tarp before storing it. If it is still wet, it will continue to break down in storage, reducing the amount of compost you have available.

I have a good supply of compost on hand, so the finished compost from this summer will be spread on the beds next spring. I'll also add compost in mid-summer or fall, before late-season planting.

Lush

The last month has been dry, with little rain, but the abundant rain earlier in the summer put a lot of moisture in the soil and has resulted in some very lush growth. Both the sweet potatoes and winter squash have spread their vines far and wide, almost swallowing up adjacent garden beds.

On the insect front, the Japanese beetles seem to have finally died off after their mid-summer rampage. It seems everyone was seeing many more of these beetles this summer. We can only hope that they are at the peak of their growth curve. We did notice that when the beetles were in the grape vines on a large wooden fence on the east side of our yard, that house sparrows were spending a lot of time on the fence hunting and eating the beetles. 

Perfect weather

After a hot, wet July in which we saw over 10" of rain, August has started out warm and dry, with a couple days of nice soaking rain. We harvested our onions last weekend and they've been curing outside all week. We canned our first batch of tomatoes last week as well. Everything is looking very lush, and it's getting hard to keep up with eating everything that is turning ripe. Our single cucumber plant has produced over 20 cucumbers so far and is still going strong.

Currently harvesting: blueberries, carrots, tomatoes, basil, new potatoes, radishes, onions, bok choy, green beans, beets, swiss chard, broccoli, collards.

Morning harvest

This is the time of year that all the gardeners look forward to, when all the planning and preparation pays off. We've had a stretch of hot weather which seems to ripen tomatoes and cucumbers almost overnight. The sweet potatoes and winter squash vines are spreading quickly and may threaten to take over our patio by fall.

We also harvested our garlic last weekend. We hang them downstairs to cure, where it is relatively cool and dry, though there isn't much ventilation. We grew ten different varieties this year, and harvested around 70 heads. We planted the garlic in two different patches, since it is a natural pest repellent. It seemed to work very well next to our cabbage, which in the past had their seedlings ravaged by insects and later on were home to slugs. This year they were almost pest-free.

More berries

Three years after planting our blueberry plants, we are finally harvesting some fruit. The first year we pinched off the fruit blossoms as they formed so that the plants would devote their energy to developing and strengthening their root systems. The last two winters, rabbits have also nibbled on many of the bare branches when they were covered with snow.

But this year we've seen nice large clusters of blossoms which are now ripening. Blueberry plants take several years to reach their peak yield, but can produce for thirty years, so we hope to see a lot more berries in the future. Part of this first pint went into our favorite vehicle for blueberries, a plate of pancakes.

Deluge

We were soaked with 5 inches of rain on Friday and Saturday, bringing our monthly total to 7+ inches. The soil is saturated right now and the hot, humid weather is keeping it that way. There is also a deluge of raspberries, which is nice to see. We made some raspberry jam last weekend and have been freezing whatever we can't eat.

On the pest front, there has been an increasing number of Japanese beetles inhabiting the raspberry canes as well as the sugar snap peas and some of the perennials in the front yard. We had a hunting party this morning with a jar of soapy water and captured a couple dozen.

Extremes

June is behind us and the garden is in full swing. We ended up with 5 1/2 inches of rain for the month, which was less than last June's 8+ inches, but it still kept things wet for much of the time. The temperatures went from one extreme to the other, with a windy 100 degree day early in the month frying some of the tender seedlings. This year we have 32 different vegetables growing in the back yard, as well as five varieties of fruit and several herbs.

One of the challenges of having a garden in a small backyard is finding enough space to grow everything one would like. One of my favorite methods is planting vegetables together which mature at different times. Here is an example of that, where I've got cabbage interplanted with sweet potatoes. By the time the cabbage are mature and picked in July, the sweet potatoes, which aren't harvested until after the first frost, can spread their vines over the entire bed.

Currently harvesting: arugula, spinach, lettuce, strawberries, kohlrabi, radishes, beet greens, rhubarb, sugar snap peas, garlic scapes.