Little Garden on the Prairie garden
	Day 248 Cabbage: Early Jersey Wakefield Brassica oleracea (Capitata Group)
	Day 248 Broccoli: Calabrese Brassica oleracea (Italica Group)
	Day 248 Broccoli: Green Goliath Brassica oleracea (Italica Group)
	Day 248 Cabbage: Copenhagen Market Early Brassica oleracea (Capitata Group)
	Day 203 Carrot: Cosmic Purple Daucus carota subsp. sativus
	Day 203 Carrot: Atomic Red Daucus carota subsp. sativus
	Day 199 Carrot: Yellowstone Daucus carota subsp. sativus
	Day 199 Carrots: Danvers 126 Daucus carota subsp. sativus
	Day 212 Onion:Copra Allium cepa var. cepa
	Day 187 Lettuce: Long Standing Batavian Lettuce Lactuca sativa
	Day 189 Lettuce: Slobolt Lactuca sativa
	Day 187 Lettuce: Grandpa Admire's Lactuca sativa
	Day 187 Lettuce: Forellenschluss Lactuca sativa var. longifolia
	Day 189 Spinach: Bloomsdale Spinacia oleracea
	Day 189 Peas: Sugar Daddy Snap Pea Pisum sativum var. macrocarpon
	Day 187 Pea (Garden type): Lincoln Pisum sativum
	Day 248 Tomato: Amish Paste Solanum lycopersicum
	Day 248 Tomato: Green Zebra Solanum lycopersicum
	Day 248 Tomato: Purple Russian Solanum lycopersicum
	Day 214 Tomato: True Black Brandywine Solanum lycopersicum
	Day 248 Eggplant: Thai Yellow Egg Solanum melongena
	Day 214 Eggplant: Ping Tung Solanum melongena
	Day 214 Eggplant: Thai Yellow Egg Solanum melongena
	Day 248 Pepper (Sweet): Sweet Red Stuffing Capsicum annuum var. annuum (Grossum Group)
	Day 214 Pepper (Hot): Thai Red Chilli Capsicum annuum longum group
	Day 224 Bachelor Buttons: Frosted Queen Mixed Centaurea cyanus
	Day 248 Basil: Summerlong Ocimum basilicum
	Day 480 German Red Garlic Allium sativum
	Day 480 Polish Red Garlic Allium sativum
	Day 480 Georgian Fire Garlic Allium sativum
	Day 192 Watermelon: Extra early Sugar baby Citrullus lanatus
	Day 192 Muskmelon: Golden Jenny Cucumis melo
	Day 192 Muskmelon: Minnesota Midget Cucumis melo
	Day 248 Gourd: Luffa (Sponge) Luffa aegyptiaca
	Day 224 Nasturtium: Alaska Mix Tropaeolum majus
	Day 170 Corn (Sweet): Silver Queen Hybrid Zea mays
	Day 176 Corn (Sweet): Silver Queen Hybrid Zea mays
	Day 166 Squash (Summer): Lemon Squash Cucurbita pepo
	Day 170 Squash (Winter): Blue Hubbard Cucurbita maxima
	Day 166 Squash (Winter): Thelma Sander's Sweet Potato Cucurbita pepo
	Day 170 Zucchini: Ronde de nice Cucurbita pepo var. cylindrica
	Day 199 Potato: German Butterball Solanum tuberosum
	Day 190 Potato: Kennebec Solanum tuberosum
	Day 179 Bean (Pole): McCaslan 42 Pole Phaseolus vulgaris
	Day 199 Leek: Lancelot Allium ampeloprasum var. porrum
	Day 523 Ozark Beauty Strawberries Fragaria x ananassa
	Day 559 Illini Blackberry Rubus fruticosus
	Day 559 Heritage Raspberry Rubus idaeus

Comments

• 

  cristyn wrote:

  Some thoughts:

  • I’m under the impression that everyone in the northeastern quadrant of the US had horrible problems with powdery mildew this year. Tomato blight got all the press, but Xan lost her squash early and, while all of mine made it to harvest, the leaves were white instead of green by the time that came around. I’m taking a year off from squash next year just in case, but I suspect the unusually cool, moist summer played a bigger role in it’s world domination than anything we mere humans did.
  • Both Katxena and Ceae had trouble with fertility at community gardens this last year due to management that disincentivized good soil care by rotating people around willy nilly each season. I’m under the impression that you get to keep your plots? But you might consider the locations of the beds that did poorly; where they from the neglected plot that you annexed midseason, for instance? Did some previous plot holder abuse them terribly through improper rotation and leave you with spots that were substantially less fertile than the rest? Is the drying out due to depleted organic matter? Etc. You might try one of those diy soil kits and test the poorly performing areas separately from the rest to see if, for example, some beds just need substantially more compost than the rest next spring.
  • Hmm… now I must rethink my notion of planting strawberries under my gooseberries…
  • I’m glad to have you back. :)

  Posted on 26 Nov 09 (over 2 years ago)

• 

  matangie wrote:

  @cmagnus - Thanks for the feedback! Powdery mildew is always a problem for us, partly because so many of the gardeners at our community gardens do nothing to control it, which means it spreads to everyone. :(

  We do get to keep our plots over multiple years (yay!), but most people just toss a load of fertilizer on instead of taking care of the soil. I think you’re right about depleted organic matter being part of our problem. There’s 6 inch to 1 foot drop off from the grass paths into the garden plots. I personally think this is from years of erosion and humus depletion. Some parts of the garden seem to be in great shape and others have almost no topsoil :-/ We’ve tried to incorporate lots of compost and keep the soil covered in mulch just about all year to improve soil structure. I don’t think we dug in as much compost in this year, and we definitely didn’t add as much to the “annexed” Southern plot as we did to the North plot in it’s first year. Also, we have fairly heavy clay soil in both plots that tends to become soupy, then dry and crack into soil bricks. We keep most of the beds mulched which goes a looong way towards regulating moisture, but it’s still a big problem when we’ve got the beds uncovered waiting for seeds to germinate. Without the mulch it seems to take daily(+) watering to keep the soil moist which is difficult to manage when your garden isn’t in your backyard.

  Also, I think the strawberries would have been fine if they’d been under the raspberries. We’d still get some scratches reaching through to harvest, but at least they’d get enough light. I don’t know about gooseberries though…

  Posted on 30 Nov 09 (over 2 years ago)

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