today’s garden work

 
 
It’s 80*F a couple days after our average first frost date! And warm weather is still ahead of us. It’s great to be still picking peppers and green beans, though the rest of my summer crops have faded with the fading light. i am ready to put up a winter low tunnel over greens, but no need for it yet. the hoops are standing bare and waiting. Work today in my home garden: – pull carrots – pick green and red chile peppers – start bagging late blight infected tomato…
 
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today’s garden work

 
 
I spent a few hours in my community garden plot this afternoon. – Pick a few cupfuls of beautiful fall raspberries – Pick at least a gallon of cherry tomatoes. I brought these to Hildy, who delivers donated garden harvests to a local shelter. My single cherry tomato plant (Jasper) is amazing! Its taken over the back corner of my garden and just won’t quit. – Dig one last potato bed for what I thought was the third time. I ended up with about 20 great big All Blue potatoes.…
 
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today’s garden work

 
 
I’ve been visiting my parents for a couple days. Today I helped out with some garden work. It was a beautiful day for gardening! – I took down “the annex”, a small (about 10 x 15 ft) garden section that we created in the lawn next to their garden last year because they needed more room. They grew tomatoes, summer and winter squash here and it did great. I pulled out fence posts and stacked them under the porch, removed and rolled up the 5 foot tall plastic deer fence…
 
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today’s garden tasks

 
 
– Harvest all green chiles for roasting tonight – Harvest red Cayenne and Thai hot chiles for drying – Harvest ripe shell beans and spread them out inside for drying – Wash the potatoes that I harvested yesterday and sort out damaged ones – Spray brassicas with spinosad (Captain Jacks Dead Bug Spray)
 
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today’s garden tasks

 
 
I spent the afternoon at my community garden plot – Clean up and compost dead squash vines, dead sunflower stalks, etc – Dig (for the third and last time) 3 of my 4 potato beds – Harvest squashes, cherry tomatoes and raspberries
 
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preparing for our Garden Tour

 
 
There is a local Garden Tour that includes our community Gardens this Sunday afternoon. Woo-hoo! Come visit us! Sustainable Belmont has organized the event and it includes a number of local organic gardens. Our community garden is the first stop on the Tour. There are many exciting gardens on the tour. The Green Garden Tour – September 7th, 12-3 pm Come visit some of the most sustainable gardens in Belmont and talk with their miracle-workers! You will find everything from hoop-houses to compost know-how; beautiful perennials to delicious annuals…and yes,…
 
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late summer garden cleanup

 
 
What a beautiful Labor Day weekend! Here’s my new garden. I put a ladder out in the yard and did what I could to get a good perspective. Its hard to do as good as that second floor window over my garden that I used to have. But this new garden is awesome. Its teaching me all sorts of things about growing vegetables and getting a new garden up and going. This weekend I pulled dead pea vines, spring broccoli plants, early bean plantings and about half of my cucumber…
 
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garden work today

 
 
Nothing like a beautiful Memorial Day weekend for starting a new garden! My husband and I brought at least a dozen carts full if dirt and compost to my new raised garden beds. We hauled it down the hill form our driveway. All 8 of my new beds now have at least some soil in them. One we filled, and so I planted it – dahlias tubers at the back and then 6 rows of popcorn seeds. The seed package said how to protect from racoons. Oh my. I hadn’t…
 
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planting mom and dad’s garden

 
 
I brought my parents 5 or 6 trays of seedlings I raised. We planted them in their old garden and in a newly dug up addition. In their old garden, we planted basil (Nufar), peppers (sweet, Bell, Joe Parker NuMex, Amelia Cayene and Thai hot), eggplants, tomatoes (early planted Siberian Red, Orange Blossom and Pink Beauty) and parsley. In the new addition we planted winter squashes (acorn, Waltham butternut and buttercup) and summer squashes (Yellow Crook and quik pik, and zucchini Elite and Romanescu) and cucumbers (Diva and Straight 8).…
 
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working on our new mini-orchard

 
 
Last weekend, we cleared the slope where our mini-orchard will go. Lots of roots needed to be dug out and removed. I used stakes and string to find the best spots to locate the trees. So far, we have 3 apples. All semi-dwarf. Varieties: Honey Crisp, Liberty and Jonathan. Also a pie cherry, variety: Montmorency. Each tree needs about 18 feet diameter of space. Next, we will dig compost into the planting holes and plant the trees. The trees will like as much compost as they can get. We’ll put…
 
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Kathy Martin
This is a journal of my vegetable gardens. Skippy thinks the garden is his, even though I do all the work. We're located near Boston, in USDA zone 6. I have bees, chickens, fruit trees and berry bushes, too. I use all sustainable organic methods and strive to grow all of my family's vegetables myself. -Kathy


weeks and counting until my last spring frost

What I planted recently

Jan 21
thyme, lettuce, escarole

Feb 21
celery, celeriac, parsley, leeks

March 11
cabbage, kale, arugula



What I'm planting soon

April 1
peppers, eggplants, marigolds, beets

April 12
tomatoes, basil, sunflowers

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My garden this week

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17 years of archives!

Check out the food pantry farm I helped to start up:

Aurelia's Garden

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Skippy’s vegetable of the month – Egyptian walking onions!

“I envision a day when every city and town has front and back yards, community gardens and growing spaces, nurtured into life by neighbors who are no longer strangers, but friends who delight in the edible rewards offered from a garden they discovered together.” – Greg Peterson

"What can happen to a seed is a miracle."

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