Looking back

At the end of every garden season I like to look back and figure out what went right and what went wrong. Here are some areas that stood out last season.

Pests. Or rather lack of them. There was considerably less damage to our crops than in previous years. Even with all the rain, the slugs were few and far between. Here are some of the things that may have helped keep down the insect damage:

• Using row covers on new seedlings. I used Agribon row covers on most of the transplanted seedlings. This protected the seedlings until they were big enough to withstand any insect attacks. It worked especially well protecting the cabbage seedlings as well as the arugula and spinach, which flea beetles used to feed on, filling the leaves with tiny pinholes.

• Using insect repellent plants. I raised marigolds from seed and planted them all around the garden. Marigolds are known as one of the best all-around insect repellents. Peppermint is another good repellent, and I used it in a couple of beds. Peppermint tends to spread prolifically, so you need to keep an eye on it. Garlic is another plant that insects dislike, so instead of having one bed of garlic, I split the planting into two separate beds. This fall I divided it even more, so I will have garlic in three different areas of the garden next spring.

We've also had problems in the past with voles eating the potatoes, but the last couple of years the damage has been almost nil. I used to mulch the potatoes with marsh hay, but the voles would nest in the hay and make it hard for our cat Kazel to find them. Now I don't use the hay and instead use a hoe to draw the soil up around the potato plants in hills. So this was the last sight several voles saw last summer:

Another strong area last season was the prolific yield of some of the vegetables. Our one cucumber plant produced over 60 fruit, and below was the yield from one winter squash plant.

My theory about this the fact that we planted borage flowers around the garden, which are known to attract honeybees. Along with the large amount of flowers in the front yard, the bees may have been drawn to the garden where they pollinated a large number of the blossoms on the vegetables. In any case, there will be plenty of borage in the garden again next year.

There weren't any big failures this year, the main problem was my delay in starting some seedlings, like bell pepper, kale and fall cabbage, which resulted in few red peppers, and scrawny kale and fall cabbage. I'm also trying to find a better system of supporting the tomatoes, so that the yield is high without having so many rot on the ground under the dense foliage.

Grand Marais

Katherine and I spent a few days last week in Grand Marais, where we took classes at the North House Folk School. I took a class called "Rustic Breads for the Brick Oven", taught by Derek Lucchese, in which we made several styles of bread and baked them in North House's brick oven. Most of the breads were made using only a sourdough starter and no yeast.

I learned quite a bit in the day and a half and it was very helpful to see a baker kneading, shaping and scoring loaves.  One of the most important things I took away from the class was the importance of maintaining a temperature range of 70-75 degrees when refreshing your starter and fermenting your dough. I believe that many of my sub-standard loaves at home have been caused by fermenting at too low a temperature or using a less than fully active starter.

 My loaves proofing in the classroom.

 Everyone brought their loaves out to the oven.

 Derek loading loaves into the oven.

 Derek testing loaves for doneness.

 The beautiful rustic loaves.

Fall harvest

Although we haven't had a killing frost yet, most of the root crops are ready to harvest. We've been pulling carrots, potatoes and sweet potatoes in the last two weeks. Most of the carrots and sweet potatoes are still in the ground, but I harvested all of the potatoes last week.

They are curing on the basement floor to harden the skins before I put them in the root cellar. With the extremely warm October we've been having (80+ degrees for several days in a row), the temperature in the root cellar is still in the 60's, which is too warm for storage. We need some extended sub-freezing nights and cool days to lower the temperature in the cellar.

Now harvesting: Carrots, potatoes, sweet potatoes, bell peppers, Jalapeno peppers, tomatoes, winter squash, spinach, Swiss chard, collards, beets, celery, green beans.

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.