The tomatoes started off looking vibrate and healthy, and I even managed to get a few handfuls of tomatoes off the vines before the late blight that ravaged tomato plants across the country hit. In my years of gardening, that blight was one of the most amazing things I have ever seen. One day the tomatoes are growing green and vigorous, with plenty of riping fruit, 3 days later the vines are crisp and dead and the fruit that looked so beautiful is rotting.
The herbs...basil, lemon balm, mint, rosemary, and tarragon all did well, and so did the zucchini plant.
Even though I did not get much of harvest, planting this little garden late in the season was well worth it, just to prepare the soil for planting this fall. We don't have dirt here, we have sand. Pure, unadulterated sand. Very easy to till, and soft and light for roots to develop in, but with very few nutrients for the plants. To prepare the soil for the tomatoes, I dug half bushel size holes in the lawn and filled them with compost (I transported my compost pile from my old home to here--and endured a lot of teasing from my husband because of it...how many people make moving the compost pile the top priority when moving?). Then I put down a inch thick layer of goat manure that was conveniently covering the floor of the little animal barn on our new property, then covered that with an inch of straw mulch to kill the grass between the tomatoes and to keep the weeds down.
Today I ripped out the dead plants and tilled up the soil to plant next year's garlic. The goat manure and straw had composted nicely and made a nice rich soil for the garlic. Next year this little plot will be the kitchen herb/cut flower garden. It is very conveniently located right outside my kitchen door.
And this will be the main garden next year:
(I love my little farm tractor!)
Golly that's gardening on a whole other scale! Well done on your produce which looks gorgeous x
ReplyDeleteI love my tractor too! It's a country girl thing.
ReplyDeleteThis summer I read the book "The Earth Knows My Name" about different cultures gardening in the U.S.A. and one man tells of how his family not only took their compost with them when they moved, but dug up all the soil and took that with them too! So tell your husband it could have been worse! LOL
LOL. I would have loved to take the soil with me. I spent six years building up that soil and finally had it where it should be. I gave away lots of plants from the garden before I left...and told my friends who where digging to only take the plants...not the soil. (I mostly didn't want them to leave a bunch of holes that the new owners would then have to fill in.)
ReplyDeleteYour garden did well for such a late start!
ReplyDeleteYou did well! Next year will be even better. It's a shame about the blight. It hit here too.
ReplyDeleteLeaving behind a garden full of great soil you helped create must have been hard, but now you have the joy of doing it again. Think of it as giving back to the earth.