Gardening in the Land of the Huguenots
The garden has been very productive this year, despite an overall lack of rain. Here are a few highlights:
Green beans: 4.82 kg
Strawberries: 20.76 kg
Red currents: 5.66 kg
Potatoes: 53.3 kg
Garlic: 108 pieces
Onions: 201 pieces
Carrots: 3.5 kg
Zucchini: 198 pieces (to date)
The new beds are doing well, the melons and pumpkins are spreading out rapidly:
Our two pear trees are really bearing fruit:
Spring is straining to break out, but the nights are still cool, it dropped below freezing a couple nights this week.
The plants that I started are screaming to go outside, but Friday night the temperatures are predicted to drop to around freezing. But after Saturday the temperature prediction for the next 10 days are favorable, my tomatoes may finaly get their way. I have been gradually hardening them off this week, carrying them back inside each night. I think they are ready, we’ll see.
The lettuce in my raised beds is looking good, we have already been pulling leaves to eat. As home office continues, its a pleasure to go outside and pick some lunch.
Our church was able to reopen last weekend, but with limited participants, mandatory masks, and a disinfections station at the door. I was tasked with building the stand:
We had an extremely early spring in our part of Germany this year, I was able to start working the gardens in January. I planted garlic on the 18th of January, and set out onions on February 29th. They are both doing very well.
In February my company began implementing policies to combat the COVID-19 virus, first travel restrictions, than beginning in the middle of March, home office for all employees that are able too. I am fortunate that I can do my job just as well at home as in the office. Working at home has its advantages, I save at least 1-1/2 hours a day travel time, and when the weather is nice, I can spend my lunch time outside.
As I write the government continues to ure people to stay at home, restaurants are closed, other than grocery shopping there is little to do. So now when I am not working, I go for a walk or a run, and have been spending a lot of time in the garden.
The 160 square meter E-Garden is ready for planting, in fact the potatoes and peas are already out.
The 18 square meter L-Garden is also very far ahead. I was able to set up broccoli, cabbage and cauliflower plants at the end of March. The endive survived the mild winter, we are still eating it.
I am also taking advantage of working at home and have started my own tomato, cucumber, squash and numerous other plants in my yard garden and in almost every window in the house. Normally I am not home in the morning to open the growing beds outside and the shades in the house, now I can do it on my coffee break. This should save quite a bit of money in the long run.
My home office will probably continue for at least the next few months. And the dangers related to the COVID-19 virus remain, so I guess this year vacation will be in the garden. It should be a very bountiful year, if the weather cooperates.
The garden year 2019 remained productive into the new year. In January of this year I was still harvesting kale, fennel and carrots.
The plants in the mini-bed garden did very well, and there was very little labor involved. In the beginning there were a few weeds around the plants, but eventually the plants blocked out any weed growth.
The L-Garden is also doing well. In this garden I have broccoli, lettuce, and part the tomatoes and cucumbers.
Hard to believe it’s the first of August already, the garden season is advancing quickly. Our summer here in the land of the Huguenots remains very hot and dry, like much of Europe. Fortunately, the gardens that I use have deep wells, so the daily watering has not caused them to dry up.
The past few weeks have been stifling hot, with temperatures often reaching 36-37 °C (97-99 °F). This has been good for some garden crops like tomatoes, cucumbers and squash, but disastrous for others, like onions, broccoli and cauliflower. Our zucchini is doing well in the E-Garden, where it is partly shaded during the hottest part of the day, but poorly in the L-Garden where it sits in the scorching sun all day.
I left our early potatoes in the ground a little longer, hoping they would grow longer. This proved to be a mistake, when I dug them up last weekend I found dozens if cutworms munching away at our crop. I estimate we lost at least half of our early potatoes from the little buggers. I showed no mercy when I found one, squishing them to death as I dug.
I am now considering digging my main storage potatoes before they fall prey to the hungry beasts. It would be nice if I could have chickens in the garden, they love to eat cutworms.
The L-Garden has mixed results. The zucchini is off to a good start, we have been eating some this week. Growing next to the squash is rat tail radishes, the first time I have tried to grow this.
The onions seem to be growing extremely slowly, I’m not sure if it is the heat or that they don’t like the soil. I need to check the PH in these beds.
The tomatoes under my makeshift roof are doing very well, the first tomatoes should start ripening soon. I actually need to thin them out a little bit so they get more air.
The cucumbers are also producing, the plant on the right was planted a few weeks before the others.
It is hard to see in the following picture, but the row of tomato plants along the back wall are looking very poorly, this section is shaded most of the day. I am considering moving them into the E-Garden.
The small kitchen garden on the side of our house (not shown) is bursting with Rucola and Lollo salad, a variety of herbs, and soon cocktail tomatoes and spinach.
I also have a “wild” potato patch, from not cleaning out all of the potatoes from last year. These are early potatoes, so I decided to leave them and plant my pumpkins in between, we’ll see what happens.
I also cut the buckwheat and added a row of raspberry shoots. The rest of the area will be used for squash, pumpkins and maybe honeydew melons.
Here is a short update of my seed starting experiment in toilet paper rolls. I 6 rolls with peas and 6 rolls with kohlrabi. I also planted 3 of each in some biodegradable pots that I found at our garden center.
The results after approximately 3 weeks:
The toilet paper rolls have survived multiple watering, I am overall satisfied with the results.