Planting for the Fall

This week I've been planting cantaloupe and crowder peas for the fall garden. I double dug the beds and put compost in the bottom of the trenches. They both have come up and I plan on trellising them.

The oriental cukes are doing fine as I have mulched them now that the weather has become drier and hotter.

Just picked some more brocolli and cauliflower. Linda is processing the turnip and kale greens. She cooks them, them puts them up in quart size freezer bags. That will last us through the summer. The kale will produce all the way up to 1st frost.

I'm now having to water once a week. I don't have enough material to mulch this year so I'll have to just use a dust mulch. I normally mulch my tomatoes with half-rotted compost but do not have enough this year. I'm saving my cardboard scraps to use as mulch.

This year's summer crop was an total disaster. The 100 deg weather came early and stayed for weeks on end. As a result the tomatoes, beans, oriental beans, bell pepers, etc did not make. The beans of coarse fell victim to the spider mites and never recovered. The cukes, bell peppers, and tomatoes did make in the fall. We haad a nice crop of small green tomatoes for frying. Next year I am going to plant a week earlier to see what happens.

Compost Bin

Just finished moving the compost bin. The spot it was before will now be a worm bed for fish'n. It is the far half of the bin in the picture. Each half is 8' L X 40" W. The best height for the pile is 4'. The bin is only about 2 1/2' high it will hold a 4' high pile. I usually scout for bags of leaves in the area and bring them home for compost. I take fresh green lawn clippings or high nitrogen fertilizer and layer it into the leaves to get the pile going. If the leaves are dry I sprinkle water on each layer using a watering can or sprayer. Not too much water.

The previous spot will remain uncultivated until next year in order to mellow it out. After I moved the old material out, I turned the soil over. Man! Look at all dem night crawlers!

The upper photo is a detail of the bricks I use to keep the planks off the ground in order to preserve them. The 2 x 12 and 1 x 12 planks are mended together using cleats and heavily galvanized 3 in nails driven through pre-drilled holes, bent at the ends, then clinched into the back. Two nails per board; four nails total for each cleat; 3 cleats per 8' planks. The 2 x 12s are treated and set on the bottom with the 1 x 12s placed on top. The ends are designed to be removed easily in order to bring the wheel barrow in to the bin. All the long planks are over 10 years old.

I've learned not to leave the stakes protruding above the planks because I have been caught by them causing a nasty spill and gash in my leg. The stakes are old bed rails and cut with an abrasive wheel.