Life has been wonderfully mellow these past few weeks. We have been working hard at getting our backyard vegetable garden established, but other than that it has been a fairly lazy summer waiting for our new baby to arrive.
The tomatoes, summer squash, and cucumbers are doing well after our late start....
We only planted four tomatoes and 4 pickling cucumbers - not nearly enough for all the sauces, salsas, and pickles I would like to make, not to mention freezing tomatoes for winter soups. Oh well, it was the best we could do under the circumstances. I guess I should be happy we got any summer crops started at all.
We have a major problem with powdery mildew here in Portland. It doesn't seem to slow down the squash too much, but it is death for the cucumbers. I've been successful so far keeping it contained to one of the boxes using a spray of 2 TB baking soda, 2 TB vegetable oil, and a little dish soap mixed with 2 QTs water. It requires daily application, but I'm out in the garden every morning anyways so its not much of a hassle.
My wonderful husband worked very hard to build 4 new vegetable boxes and prepare an additional 3' x 25' bed along the side of our house.
We have several of our Fall crops going - broccoli, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, turnips, rutabagas, parsnips, scallions, radishes, various salad greens, kale, and swiss chard in addition to our regular assortment of herbs. Last year I didn't have much luck with our Fall crops, so I'm hoping my research paid off and we'll get a better harvest this year.
The first of our pickling cucumbers were harvested this week. I made a small batch of mixed vegetable refrigerator pickles as well as a few pints of watermelon rind pickles....
When not working in the garden, I've been catching up on my reading. Here are a few books I read this past month that I recommend....
"This Organic Life: Confessions of a Suburban Homesteader" by Joan Dye Gussow
An entertaining read about Gussow's adventures in and philosophy on growing your own produce and eating local, seasonal food. Its part journal, part how-to manual mixed with interesting facts, insights, and a few recipes.
"Edible Estates: Attack on the Front Lawn" by Fritz Haeg
This book has me all fired up to replace our front lawn with a vegetable garden. Not that I needed much convincing, but now I'm definitely more inspired than ever.
"Gaia's Garden: A Guide to Home-Scale Permaculture" by Toby Hemenway
A nice introduction to permaculture. Definitely made me rethink some of our landscaping plans.
Tomatoes are finally starting to arrive at our Farmers' Market and the peaches are getting affordable, so soon it will be time to start making all sorts of delicious canned tomato sauces and salsas plus start adding frozen peaches and soup tomatoes to the growing assortment of produce in the freezer. Have I mentioned that I love summer?
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