I've been ignoring my garden for a while, other than picking regular tomatoes and green beans and some basil. I'm pretty surprised that the cherry tomato has held on for this long. It was at least 6 weeks ago that I thought it was dead. There's stuff dying on it all the time, but now I'm seeing lots of new green leaves growing near the bottom. Maybe it will come back happily. The tomatoes I'm getting off of it are not great; they're kind of small and the skins are pretty tough. That might just be the variety. Will not grow again.
Today I would like to go out and clean up the dead branches from the cherry tomato and use the plant ties to redirect it to the cage. It's looking like such a mess.
The Better Boy tomato is doing really well. I'm getting several nice sized tomatoes every week, enough that I have to give them away. They're a little small recently, which I don't have a problem with, but I think that's because it hasn't had very much water. We're not going to get much rain over the next week so I want to really deeply water it today. And the green beans are of course doing really well. I do still find this big overgrown ones in weird spots that I didn't see several days before when I should have picked them.
I might also try to clean up the green bean mass a little bit, just pull off all of the dead stuff. The strawberries under there may or may not make it, since I think the beans kind of shaded them more than I would like. And I'll rip out that sunflower. It was nice, but only for a week or so.
Now, I think the tomatoes keep going through September, so I won't be pulling them out until then. In a few weeks I might get sick of the sad Cherry tomato and rip it out so I can plant some of the fall veggies.
I started some bok choy and some random lettuce to go under lights, and I have a few Swiss chard and Radicchio starts going. But they have been kind of neglected, so I don't know how well they're going to do. I bought another bag of seed starting mix yesterday so I can get going with more of these starts. I think I will start some more Kale, I might need to give away the starts eventually because I don't know what kind of space I'll have. I'm actually going to order some Romaine, and some Sorrel, which I've never grown or anything but it's like a salad green or stir fry green, and it's so pretty! I might just fill up the window box with it.
And this morning I topped off the Gutter Garden with the compost, and I'm going to sow a bunch of lettuce and mesclun and arugula seeds in there. I'll soak it down really well first and then I think I just lay them on top. Maybe I'll be smart and do a whole row of arugula, a whole row of mesclun. I'll also have some containers free by the time we get to October. So those can be used for other fall veggies, like maybe some Swiss chard or some Kale. Actually, I think I will do at least one container full of Cilantro. I've got some really nice starts under the lights right now, in the water bottles.
Ok but seriously. I really want some romaine, so that's my first priority of what should go in the raised bed. I think the first thing to come out of the raised bed is the cherry tomato, so that spot can take a few heads of Romaine.
So I'm thinking, I've got like, six Swiss Chard starts that seem to be doing well; they've got lots of root growth. I think I will keep them under lights for another week, and then I will plant them in the window box. They will get a lot of sun there, but I'll need to be pretty diligent about watering. And once they get growing they're actually very pretty. But since I just put them into larger containers, I don't want to put them in there today. I'd like to let them get settled in there and put on more root growth before that.
The zinnias are big, but not as prolific as they were last year. I guess that's a sun thing. I did give them some compost around the base, but I wish I had put down some bone meal or some other fertilizer. Same with the Morning Glories- they're finally starting to put on some volume, but they don't have nearly as many flowers as last year. Last year I gave them a few feedings of flower boost Miracle Grow, and I think that really did help.
They came around and pulled all of the massive amounts of weeds out of the sidewalk bed, and now it looks pretty great. I'm so glad we divided those ornamental grasses because now they're looking really good and they make a really nice filler for that area. I do still really want to put in some other perennials, and now I can actually see where they would go. I'm thinking just Coreopsis.
I really need to deal with the compost. There is like, one pan full of almost compost in there now, and I should just get out there and sift it. And that's the easier part, once I do that, I need to move all the crap in the garbage bin into the tumbler, and incorporate all the coffee grounds I have. I'm scared of digging out all the plant stuff from the garbage bin. I did drill a lot of holes, so I think it's dry enough. I don't notice any smell from it, so I don't think it's all rotten and disgusting. But there's a good chance it is chock full of spiders.
I'm thinking I will wait until the sun has gone behind the house, and I'll drag out one of the plastic tubs. I'll just pull the whole top off the bin, and transfer it by the handful. And as I pack that in, I'll just throw in handfuls of coffee grounds. And based on the average temps, it won't freeze until early November. So that's like, 12 weeks from now. That's not an unreasonable amount of time to get compost. Mike McGrath would tell me that if I shred the leafy stuff I would get compost in like, 4 weeks. But I think it's already a little broken down and the coffee grounds would just speed it up more.
So yeah, seeds. I'm adding in some Kale right now, in the plastic bottles, kind of the same as the Cilantro. I also want to try Radishes again. These crazy things claim 30 days to maturity, so if I planted them now, they would be theoretically ready mid September, and probably wouldn't taste that great. Actually I don't know, I haven't read anything about how they're not good if you pick them before any frost. If I plant some right now, by the end of September if I don't have any radishes I can just say fuck it and use that container for kale or whatever. See, this is why I had potting soil on my list, and I was like, why do I need that right now? Well if I really feel like it, I can always get some tomorrow.
So, the Morning Glory, I think it dies with the first frost? If I pull it all out in early October, I could use all those nice containers for other stuff like lettuce. Well, actually for bigger things, I think I will have enough leaf lettuce from the gutter garden.
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