October 2016

The month October will be a month of garden cleanup and preparation for Spring.  The beds have massive grass seed that will sprout next spring and cause me fits.  I will have to stay on top of the grass situation more than I have this year to keep the beds clean.

I still would like to get the other ten pathway blocks laid before Winter and all the beds cleaned up.  I just might be able to get it done if I continue to use the 1 1/2 hours of morning time after Bradley goes to school.  A lot can be done in that time, if I can get there at least three times a week.  It seems family and friends want time so hopefully the morning time will be best for my gardening.  I'm finding that time for gardening is at a premium at this time of my life.

The Urban Ranch garden suffered this year from neglect.  The tomatoes did ok and the green beans did ok and I still have to dig the potatoes.  The flowers that I planted did really well after they decided to grow.  It's all time to go into the compost at Terra Nova Gardens.

As the time for outside gardens diminish the basement garden begins to arise.  

Saturday October 1, 2016 Urban Ranch

Lifted the spuds today.  This is about 8 plants.  I expect it is about 20 pounds.  Last year I layered the potatoes and got about twice as many but they were much smaller.  These potatoes are conciderably larger.  So maybe weight wise it's about the same.

Two beds have been cleaned and the waste has been bagged.  One side of the tomato bed has beed cleaned up from the flowers grown there.  I'm not sure what the flowers were called but they grew up in a mass that took over not only the side but the entire pathway as well.  It almost filled up two yard waste bags.  Yeah, two more beds to go.  

Monday October 10, 2016 Terra Nova Gardens
It rained off and on most of the day today.  Even though it rained, I spent four hours at the garden cleaning up the beds.  I completely removed the tomatoes in the towers.  It really looks bare without the towering tomatoes being there.  Three wheel barrow loads were taken to the compost heap. Two of the pathways in the sweet corn fortress were cleaned up.  The next time I go to the garden I will finish the pathways inside the fence if I can.  The water barrel was drained.  I only had to use one barrel and it was only used in June.  The rest of the year the garden received enough rain without irrigation.  Hopefully, I'll be there again tomorrow.

Tuesday October 25, 2016 Terra Nova Gardens
My goodness, here it is October 25th cruising down on November.  The weather is beautiful with 70s during the days and 40s at night.  I expect the hammer to drop at any time now and suddenly be freezing temperatures.

Another day at the garden finished up the cleanup for the sweet corn fortress.  It took three days to get the weeds out of the beds and pathways.  I hadn't really touched this area since the corn harvest back in the last week of July.  The corn was delicious and neighbors near the garden that I had given some wanted to know if I was going to grow more next year.  I might have to expand the production of the corn patch.  I have plans for expanding the vegetable stand in front of the garden.

You can see the pallet that I used for giving away tomatoes this year.  It was pretty lame but worked.  Next year a sign that says something like, "Free Take what you can use or give away".  It's a way of letting the neighborhood have the excess of what I can't use.  The garden actually looks nice for once.  I still have a section that the carpet needs to be flipped and covered.  

This is my best project of the summer.  The entrance to the garden now has a landing made with poor man patio bricks.  Eventually, the patways for the first section of the garden will all be bricked.  I am figuring it will take at least two years to finish the pathways and double rock line the beds.  The sweet corn fortress will get some modifications.  I want to make a removable section for a gate to be able to get into the fortress without climbing over the fence.  

Weed control will be different next year.  One comment that made an impression on me this last weekend at the Mother Earth News Fair was "don't weed, cultivate".  The meaning was don't wait for the weeds to grow, cultivate two to three days after a rain when the seeds have sprouted.  Weeds can't grow in loose soil.  Another weed control is to use a vinegar, soap mixture to spray on them.  The last weed control is to burn them witha torch.  The weeds don't have to be totally burn up but just heated above 300 for a couple seconds.  It kills them in a matter of minutes.