Giving Up on the Garden for This Year, Sort of

The heat and no rain has killed my Roma tomatoes...ARGH! It didn't matter how much I watered them. Same was true for most of my summer garden. About the only plants that are doing fairly well is Mel's experiment bucket garden. My straight neck squash and zucchini finally put on some female and male flowers respectively. The only problem is they have no counterparts. I've never had such a bad gardening year. It only took three weeks of blistering heat and weed growth to do it.

But I have a plan for a better spring next year. What I don't plant in the fall will get a new foot of hay, a layer of compost, and at least 6" of fallen leaves (when they drop). I'll sprinkle the whole thing with nitrogen rich blood meal and let it cook for fall and winter. I'll do the same for the fall garden when I finish harvesting it and it will cook all winter. There should be very little of the weeds left by spring also. I hadn't planned building 8" more inches of soil but I gotta do something. Short of spraying an herbicide on it, I can't think of a better solution. Besides, the worms and other beneficial organism will love it. I'll be hitting up the orchard after the trees and bushes go dormant. I'll spike them with Jobe's Organic fertilizer stakes this year too for good measure. I want to sow amaranths and millet around where Mel has planned the new coops and runs for extra goodies for the chickens. We just love our chickens. It's also a good shield from predators.

I ain't tilling no more.  Uh, uh, no way, no how. I'll be saving pennies all fall and winter to afford more of the landscape fabric and pins. We'll also be investing (Haha! They're free) in more five gallon buckets to make Mel's experiment a reality in a big way for all my tomatoes and pepper plants. I'm thinking 40 more buckets and two more stands to start with. So we'll both have a busy winter projects. I'll probably splurge and buy a couple 1"x 10' PVC pipes even though we probably have something that we can make do with here, but I'm not sure if we have enough to do 40 pots. I've got to get another 1/2" PVC pipe for another quail triplex watering system anyhow.

This time, I plan on spreading the landscape fabric underneath the bucket benches. I sure got tired of pulling the weeds that kept growing up between the wire shelving, because we didn't do it in the spring.  Lesson learned. Isn't it amazing how we keep learning as we go in homesteading?! Even when we think we know it all we are still learning. That's what I love about this lifestyle.

So it's back to the drawing board for our organic garden, sort of, to get the weeds under control again. Honestly, it was time to pile on a fresh layer. It should be done every year and we skipped last year because I wasn't able to do it. Usually it's about 6" worth not 18", but it's been a couple of years. All that composting being done shrinks with time. Healthy, nutrient rich soil equals better produce, Over the winter, I'll also be sprinkling wood ash too.

Yes, next spring will begin a great gardening year, starting with revitalized soil and less weeds.

Y'all have a blessed day!

Cockeyed Jo