Garden Update

Even with the FLOOD OF 2008 (said in your best deep announcer voice with sound effects) in progress I thought I would talk a little about gardening. The flood wiped out my garden plot, as I’m sure you’ve heard me complain about. I thought I would list what all was wiped out though.

All the beds in the plot were 9×4, or 36 sq ft each. I had three beds of potatoes, and three beds of sweet potatoes. One bed of tomatoes and one bed of peppers. I also had 4 beds of corn plants destined for a 3 sisters garden, so by default a chunk of the bean and squash/pumpkin harvest was extinguished. I had two beds of dried beans and one bed of carrots. Also, half of one bed was onions and the other half was broccoli.

That may not sound like a whole lot, but it was 17 beds of produce. All planted biointensive and extremely dense. (There are 18 beds but I left one for the kids to play in, even if it meant the cantaloupe and watermelon had to go). If the taters came in like the ones I grew at home last year, planted that densely, I would have ended up with about 75 pounds of potatoes, for example.

While it’s sad to see all that effort down the tubes, I can still salvage a good portion of the year by refocusing my efforts on what I can replant to harvest in the fall. The plots need to be emptied by October 1st (or the first frost) whichever comes first, so I still have quite a bit of time to grow things for the fall. I imagine I’ll be able to get back into the garden in a month, so that puts me in mid-July for the planting of whatever I can. What can I plant then to get something from the plot this year?

I can do a massive replanting of carrots at that time for the fall. Most carrots need 90-120 days to mature, which puts me right up against the October 1st date. I can also go with turnips, broccoli, cabbage and Brussell sprouts. These should all store fairly decent in the basement as well, except the broccoli which we’ll eat fresh or freeze. I believe I can plant some winter squash, especially if I start the seeds now and transplant the plants later. I’ll probably do that as I have a few plants growing up a trellis at home, but would like more. (Man, I wish I had the sweet potatoes. I’ll have to buy them this year but we really like them. Almost more than regular potatoes I think.)

I’ll plan to plant the greens at my house. Lettuce, swiss chard, kale, etc. I can put up a trellis or two to vine some peas on in the garden plot. Those take about 60 days or so, although I hardly ever get peas to grow. My peas at home are growing well (keep your fingers crossed) I’ll also have time to replant with beans too as most beans take 60 days to mature. I may have more than enough planted at my house though to get me through the summer and winter.

I think that’s the just of it. Can any of you think of any plants that I could put in that I’m not thinking of? I’m not doing potatoes again because all the local sources of potatoes are gone, and the prices you have to pay to buy them from a seed catalog are more than I want to pay. Yeah, I know I’m cheap. That’s just the way I am. I still have a fair amount planted at home to enjoy, but they won’t last past a month or two.