The blueberries are almost done - one bush decided to give us a second crop. They were so delicious and such a treat. Miss Pear loved harvesting her snacks!
Most of the fruit trees will not produce fruit this year, despite the plethora of blooms. This is actually good as it establishes the trees better. It does appear that we will get mandarins though! And our lemon tree is working hard on a few little lemons, but no hints of yellow yet!
Our beans and cucumbers got off to a very rough start due to snails and slugs. Cucumbers required three replantings and beans at least 5. I finally found a snail and slug bait that works, so we are not actually seeing progress!
Our tomatoes are now over 3 feet tall except for one variety that is not doing so well. There are lots of blooms and small green tomatoes so I am looking forward to tomatoes in a few weeks. (And hopefully a bumper crop when my MIL is here with her expert canning knowledge!)
We are looking forward to carrots very soon too!
Our peppers are off to a rough start, but we may have some by the end of the season keeping in mind that September is the peak of our heat, and we will have warm weather into October and even early November.
So I have learned that:
- Our soil is very poor and needs lots of compost this winter - fortunately because we do the yard waste material bins on garbage day we can get free compost if we just go pick it up.
- Our yard is shadier than I realized making the growing season start a bit later than anticipated
- Snails and slugs out eat any teenage boy I have ever met, and cannot be shown mercy of removing them as they just return and ravage what they missed the first time!
- I will not grow lettuce again because even though it is doing very well it is encouraging snails and slugs to visit.
- I will try again next year and hopefully do better!
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2 comments:
The soil here is also very poor and could use compost. I have a compost pile.
How will you be applying yours? Do you put it down once all the harvesting is done for the year? Do you work it into the ground or just lay it allowing the moisture of winter to work it down in?
Oh how I miss the compost heap we had in Minnesota! It was terrific. We worked ours in the soil at the end of the growing season, then again in the spring.
Are you using some type of organic snail bait? We used chemical stuff in Italy and there was a slug massacre. Just a note - when they die all at once like that - they really really stink!
I can't wait until next year to do some more container gardening. We moved in too late and I only made up some herb pots
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