Building for Next Year

 

This is one way to look at it. Yeah. Building our soil for next year. That's it! It seems that the last viable melon ended up being about 90% rind. Into the compost bin.

We grew a LOT of compost this year. Mutant corn, rotted squash, chewed beets. This will make for better soil next year. 

Last week was cold. While we still have many green tomatoes, they may not have time to ripen. The beans we planted for a late crop are questionable, as are the peas. The late crop of lettuce seems to have stalled out as well. I was expecting more from the late planted kale, as it really is a cold weather crop - something that, theoretically, we could be harvesting well into October. They too are Lilliputian. 

On the raised bed construction project, progress is steady. This new one in the upper garden was an experiment. Instead of 2x6 boards, I substituted in 1x6 boards, with the traditional 24" tall (18" above the wood) 4x4 corners. This seems solid enough, and will save quite a bit of money if we go with this for the rest of the planned beds. Just 7 more to go, and a truckload of dirt to fill them. 

 Even the Upper Garden is on an incline. I'd thought we could get away with flat, one layer beds, but the slope is still significant. 

The late summer sun is showing us where the next beds need to go. Where the grass is withered and dried up, that will be the perfect place to build. It will also make it a lot easier to mow our diminishing lawn. Less lawn is always better. 

As I see it now, we might be able to continue building up into early November. 

We need to get some garlic into the ground in October. 

This self-sufficiency seems to be a year-round endeavor. 

Forward!