Deirdre's Garden Diary 2008 June July Summer Vegetables

.
:: August-September 2008 ::

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

:: 08.08.08 ::

Ate.Ate.Ate

I rather like this idea and agree that it would make a great statement...

.

.

Besides the petition mentioned in the video there are other garden activists like this who are reviving the idea of the Victory Gardens by taking an activist approach to encourage people to grow more edible gardens. They are helping their local community near San Francisco by offering a starter kit for sale and will even come to your house and help you set it up! It's part of a new movement for sustainable living and urban edible gardens as a way to help improve the ecological problems facing our modern environment.

Here is an e-book titled "The War Garden Victorious"; you can read more about the history and see some interesting vintage images. The Fenway Victory Garden in Boston is the oldest memorial garden still in existence. And long before World War II, Americans such as Thomas Jefferson knew the importance of keeping a vegetable garden at his home in Monticello...This site lets you take a historical virtual tour of that amazing garden estate.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

:: 08.1.08 ::

Fall Down

We moved into August with some rain in the early morning hours both today and yesterday. The thunder woke me so I got up and went outside to sit on the porch with the kitties to enjoy the cool breeze and sweet smell of a summer rain. It was really nice and the plants are loving it. I hope it marks a trend and we get more. The temperatures have been really hot, frequently over 100F for about two weeks now.

The big news here though is that I actually decided to finally do a Fall garden. That means I am having to plan it now and get things ready despite the 100F heat. This is the hardest part of gardening for me...juggling the seasons and figuring out what to plant when...math is kind of involved: counting backwards from anticipated frost dates, counting forward how many days until a seed will germinate, and how many until it can be harvested for each type of vegetable...it can get confusing fast. I made charts...I revised charts...but I stilI don't feel confident that I did it right. I keep checking and rechecking the calculations. Even with al this, it's relative at best and mother nature can change it all on a whim.

With all that anticipation and planning I did actually manage to get a start on Fall and sowed my first ever seeds indoors. Squash and Pumpkins had the honor of being first into the planters and the "pattypan" squash is the winning variety having been the very first to
break the soil surface and put out it's cotyledon leaves. It was a very exciting moment here at the newly formed Pope nursery and plant propagation facilities.

So Fall production is now officially underway! Over the next couple of weeks I will start more seedlings. The real work left to do is cleaning up the summer garden beds. This is not going to be fun since it has to be done NOW and now means it is still HOT, and that means whining will be involved.

Some decisions will also need to be made...some of the tomato plants are still producing. Should I sacrifice them and just plant new ones? Should I cut back the old ragged stems and see if they put out new foliage for Fall? It's a hard decision to make for one so prone to procrastination as myself. But it needs to get done and in frenzy of trying to avoid the scorching heat who knows what could happen.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .