Looking to the NW there are several beds ready for melons (they have black landscape mulch) and some not quite ready for melons (they are bare) the hoop house in the middle of the background is no longer there but the cukes, zukes and melons that it was protecting are, though they are just about done. the other hoop house is still up and has peppers in it. the peppers were a last minute experiment that has worked out well. We had an extra hoop house and I suggested in April that maybe we should set up the hoop house over peppers and so we planted out around 70 peppers plants on black mulch with row covers over top in mid to late April (they went in a couple weeks after the early tomatoes) and this past Tuesday I harvested the first 3 green peppers. The main crop of peppers won't be producing for another 3 to 4 weeks.
This is looking west towards the pepper hoop house and the raspberries. I am standing among the various peas we grow. Under the row covers are various crops such as beets, carrots turnips, melons, winter squash.
Looking north. This is taken at the east end of the market garden. the grain is barley and I believe the row covers are covering beets and radishes. I do know that the bed with the holey cover is now open and will be replanted with something like green beans. The much nicer covers to the left are covering beets which are just beginning to come in. I took a picture of the holey cover to demonstrate row covers do not have to be in perfect shape to be useful. this cover was used to keep weather off of the plants. It provided a lot of shade and and kept in moisture and the plants grew well. Unfortunately they did not grow in a useful way as they were from home saved seed that was badly saved (i.e Eugene saved seed from less than perfect plants, far less than perfect as a matter of fact, so we got red meat radishes that did not for radishes. Eugene learned a lesson about seed saving-you save only from the best plants that have the traits you want. What he did was save seed from plants that bolted early and so he got a crop of early bolting radishes)
Looking to the NW there are several beds ready for melons (they have black landscape mulch) and some not quite ready for melons (they are bare) the hoop house in the middle of the background is no longer there but the cukes, zukes and melons that it was protecting are, though they are just about done. the other hoop house is still up and has peppers in it. the peppers were a last minute experiment that has worked out well. We had an extra hoop house and I suggested in April that maybe we should set up the hoop house over peppers and so we planted out around 70 peppers plants on black mulch with row covers over top in mid to late April (they went in a couple weeks after the early tomatoes) and this past Tuesday I harvested the first 3 green peppers. The main crop of peppers won't be producing for another 3 to 4 weeks.
This is looking west towards the pepper hoop house and the raspberries. I am standing among the various peas we grow. Under the row covers are various crops such as beets, carrots turnips, melons, winter squash.
Looking north. This is taken at the east end of the market garden. the grain is barley and I believe the row covers are covering beets and radishes. I do know that the bed with the holey cover is now open and will be replanted with something like green beans. The much nicer covers to the left are covering beets which are just beginning to come in. I took a picture of the holey cover to demonstrate row covers do not have to be in perfect shape to be useful. this cover was used to keep weather off of the plants. It provided a lot of shade and and kept in moisture and the plants grew well. Unfortunately they did not grow in a useful way as they were from home saved seed that was badly saved (i.e Eugene saved seed from less than perfect plants, far less than perfect as a matter of fact, so we got red meat radishes that did not for radishes. Eugene learned a lesson about seed saving-you save only from the best plants that have the traits you want. What he did was save seed from plants that bolted early and so he got a crop of early bolting radishes)
3 comments:
I love seeing your fields and hearing about your operations. So informative!
You should come out and visit Carolyn
Wow, I never would have thought about early bolting being a trait that would be passed on! But of course it would.
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