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12th day of Spring

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on April 01, 2008

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Concrete Block Raised Beds: A Love Story and Casual How-to

This is the story of how a lover of wild curvaceous vegetable gardens came to appreciate the value of a nice cement garden bed. Mostly it's the story of adapting to the space you have. Actually mostly it's just some pictures of what I did. Here we go. This is the main part of my garden, my backyard: At my old house, this was my garden: You can see earlier posts about that pretty thing here and here . Sigh, I miss it. But by the time I got to this house, I had a kid and a husband and we wanted to leave a bit of lawn and more seating and cooking space, and most important, I had to reckon with the fact that all the best sun was on the concrete and paver patio. I do have vegetable beds on the South side of the house too (these pics all face West). Some other time I'll tell the story of how I ruthlessly tore out scads of dreary ornamentals to make room for them, and how snow on the mountain and creeping bellflower are my relentless enemies. But for now the point is, t...

Master of none, or, on how growing almost no tomatoes (again) in 2021 was kind of okay and also maybe a metaphor for life.

When my tomatoes didn't grow in 2020 I understood. I had theories, I had made mistakes, there was a lot else going on in my city and the world that deserved more of my attention. (I mean, as always, obviously, but moreso.) Some of my first, and only, fully ripe tomatoes of 2021 In 2021 I re-upped my committment to building my soil, did my usual bed rotation, took more care with my little tomato seedlings at transplant, and watched them grow strong and healthy, as they had for the 15 or so years of gardening previous to 2020, and set copious fruit. And there they hung, green and swollen, a few ripening here and there, one Black beauty with it's blue-black shoulders and rose red blushing belly, the first smattering of Sungolds, glowing like the nightly orb of the sun dipping below a wild-fire horizon, a few handfuls of basic, reliable red pear cherries, firm and crimson, a couple Opalka romas, one Black Krim. But when we left for a week in the Boundary Waters in mid-August, my...

Slow Beets, Beet Slaw

I have often had bad luck with beets, they just haven't bulbed. I almost gave up, but I keep hoping, and things are getting better. Last year I started them indoors in soil blocks and put them out early under cover and I did get beets, although smallish. I read somewhere to snip the tap root before transplanting, but I didn't do it, and they grew fine. This year I tried multi-sowing (per Elliot Coleman) in soil blocks. I started them around February 20th, set out first week of April under cover, and began harvesting by twisting out the largest of the bunches May 29th, progressively harvesting more as the remaining beets grew larger. I planted nine (I think?) blocks in one 6 foot row, about 4 beets per block, with radishes and eventually carrots on either side. I liked how multisowing allowed me to fit a lot of beets under one of my few covered beds in early spring. I'm not sure they benefitted from being started quite so early, I may push back a few weeks, but t...

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