2011/09/11 - A long overdue update

Sorry for the delay, folks!  Life has gotten a little busy.  :-)

On my last post I had harvested a bunch of tomatoes, then blanched, peeled, seeded, and frozen them.  In the weeks since then I've harvested cucumbers and made them into bread and butter pickles (a big hit!), got the cattle trough up onto cinderblocks, and removed the cucumber and tomato plants entirely.  I simply couldn't deal with having cucumber vines all over the ground and hiding all the tomatoes from me.  I also pulled out the Brussels sprouts since the earwigs had so completely destroyed all the foliage. 

In the process of pulling out the plants, I did put branches containing ripe tomatoes into the trough for sorting through.  After sorting, the tomatoes I brought into the house were approximately 9 pounds worth.  And please remember, these were tomatoes I didn't even know I had because they were buried in the center of the plants or behind the cucumber vines!

I've been focusing less on the garden lately, and more on getting ready for Paul to move in.  But I still enjoy spending time out there every day feeding the fish and enjoying the peaceful sound of water falling.

And now, on to the pics!

Armenian cucumber hiding:

 A batch of cucumber found:

 One that I evidently failed to find for WAY too long:

Labor Day Weekend Saturday's harvest, when I thought I'd gotten everything ripe I possibly could, to take to my mom:

The tomatoes and cucumbers trying very hard to pull the entire trellis over:

Trough up on cinderblocks, ready to be hooked up to plumbing:

So the day after that "I'll harvest everything I can for my Mom" picture, I start to pull the plants out, not expecting to find much that's ripe in there.  Boy was I wrong.

Tomatoes that had been hiding behind vines:

 Just the ripe ones that fell as I was pulling the plants out:

 Finally, a clean bed!

 Branches of ripe stuff set aside for sorting:

 Some of my NINE POUNDS of found tomatoes sorted from that bed:

I gave a bunch to my new neighbors and took some to my coworkers.  But the rest I roasted in the oven then mixed with garlic and basil.  Those were bagged and frozen for later use in some kind of saucy lusciousness.

And now, to figure out what to plant for fall.  Replacement brussels sprouts, broccoli, and Paul wants a cayenne pepper plant.  And then... we'll just have to see!

2011/08/07 - More growth, more changes

Started a fishtank cover.  But the cat jumped in the middle of it and ripped it, so I've put off finishing it for now.  But the new algae eater is doing his job so it isn't as urgent anyway.  But here's the basics of it done:

The cucumber vine grew all the way to the top of the tomatoes, and then down on all sides.  Here's a few weeks back:

And here's yesterday:

 The tomatoes are still producing tons of fruit.  Here are a few harvests over the last month:

That last batch I peeled, cored, seeded, bagged, and froze:

I wanted to move the half-barrel beds onto the new frame, so I just went ahead and tore out those tomato plants.  They were still producing a lot but I just can't cope with it all.  But they'll make fine compost for the dirt garden next year:

Here's those beds before I tore them out.  I put the basil and pepper plants into the big bed for now.

I also took out the lettuce, radishes, and cabbage:

Finally got around to harvesting the coriander.  Got a 1/2 cup of clean seeds.  More than a spice bottle full:

The fish are getting really big.  And it seems like they eat almost 2 cups a day of food.  But I'll have to put them on a little diet again until I get the new beds hooked up.  Here's a video of feeding time:

I got the half-barrels moved to the new frame, and that whole thing in place again.  And I got the cinder blocks in place to hold the cattle trough but I can't lift that onto the bricks by myself.  Even if I were stronger, it's 10 feet long and needs to go up 20 inches, so it's really a two person job.  I'm hoping a neighbor will help.  If so, I should have that all hooked up in another week or two.  The trough will be a raft bed for lettuce and basil and such.

I'm happy with how it's all going.  It's been a lot of hard work, but I'm almost to the end of that.  And the reward of picking my own fresh food makes it all worth while!

2011/07/09 - Happy and healthy

Everything is growing like crazy.  I'm really thrilled with how this is going.

Here's a salad I made a few days back using some cucumber from a coworker's garden, plus lots of goodies out of mine including the basil flowers I've been pinching back.

I built a simple earwig trap by burying a container with some vegetable oil in it, and the bugs are merrily drowning themselves.

This has allowed the chard time to recover and it's growing back up nicely.

The coriander (from my first batch of cilantro which bolted) is drying and I'll probably harvest about half of it this weekend.

The carrot seeds didn't sprout, but my first 3 carrot plants from my prior planting are doing okay.  Not growing very quickly, but I have high hopes that they'll get there eventually.  And the brussels sprouts are doing better now that the earwigs are controlled.  The spinach sprouted a little but isn't growing much.

The basil and bell pepper plants I bought a few weeks ago are really happy!  Here's last week:

And here's this week:

And the tomato plant next to it has recovered (finally!) from transplant shock.  In fact, it's escaped its cage so I'll truss it back up this weekend.

The savoy cabbage is big and has lovely dark green leaves, but hasn't produced anything that even looks like it will become a head.  I have no idea what that's about or what to do about it.  And the lettuce is growing like gangbusters.

 The dill also seems happy in its new home.

And the tomatoes.  OMG the tomatoes!  I picked a bunch this week, but I swear there are still 30 of them ripe or nearly ripe.  Here's just one small view of the most obvious ones.  (And the cucumber vine winding its way through.)

And the fish... they're eating about a cup of food a day.  I tested the water again yesterday and the ammonia is definitely rising too much, so I'll reduce them to one feeding a day until I get the rest of the growbeds built.  I should have the raft barrels hooked up this weekend, and the new 10 foot raft bed will be delivered on Monday so I'll get that done in the next week or two.  That will hopefully provide more bio area for conversion to nitrates.  I can't imagine what it would be like if I didn't have the moving bed biofilter going.  But even that doesn't seem to be enough.  And the fish are only half grown.  So I'll build the big raft bed, and maybe pour my extra hydroton into the bottom to help provide surface for nitrification.  Meanwhile, here are the fish!  (The black ones are hard to see, but the golden ones are visible enough.)