Finished

October 1, 2010

The fourth blocked in bed is finished.

I started thinking about this post about four weeks ago, with this title in mind, when Steven finished building a blocked in bed. A lot happened in September and now a few more things are finished. Here they are:

Chicories are planted in half of the new bed.

The blocked in bed. I get these crazy ideas sometimes and for some reason, Steven gives in and goes along with me. This one started a few years after we moved here, when I thought, what if we enclosed our vegetables beds with concrete blocks? It would level the beds (there is a very slight slope), keep them in place (no shifting from year to year, leaving uneven ground in between beds to trip over), keep them of uniform size (easy for planning how much can fit in a bed and irrigation lines will fit in any bed), keep the grass from growing into the beds (I do not like grass) and we would get some of the benefits of raised beds. It was a ton of work and a bunch of money, but I loved it. We built one bed each year for three years. The next year we started one, but didn’t finish. It sat unfinished for two years and then Steven completed it this summer. Another blocked in bed is ready. I have already planted half of it with fall chicories (hopefully they will grow to full size by November). The other half will be planted with cover crop. I still love it.

The tomatoes were beautiful before the blight hit.

Tomatoes. I should have told you about this sooner. The tomatoes are finished. They finished around the second or third week of September, during a week of warmish temperatures (low 70s) after some wet weather, ideal for blight to take hold. It did and it wiped them out. I thought maybe I could cut back all the foliage and just let the fruit hang on in the open to ripen, but it didn’t work. The tomatoes were gone. This winter, I’ll look at my methods for growing tomatoes and see if I can improve them.

Summer. That was an easy one, since we hardly had a summer this year. You might have thought it was over sooner, but it officially finished on September 23.

Speckles is on the way.

Lettuce. Lettuce is not really finished, just on leave for a week or so. Despite my efforts to keep it going every week of the season, there are some gaps in growth. Growth is slower with fewer daylight hours. The days are getting shorter, but lettuce should be back very soon.

One thing that is not finished yet is the season. There are still crops to harvest. I am not sure everything that I planted for fall will make it to maturity. That will depend some on the October weather and some on whether I planted things early enough or not. I am having some doubts about making it to Thanksgiving (my goal), but the season should at least make it to the end of October/beginning of November. Here are a few things I hope will make it: