Garden Addition - Another Community

We ran out of room in our Elmhurst Community Patch and after visiting the Community Garden Fest in Berkeley I decided to get a patch there.  The patches are smaller 5 feet by 15 feet and cost less, but the community feel is much larger.  I will share some details of the garden in future posts or you can check out the Garden Fest Post.

I was able to plant the garden on Thursday, June 11 around 4:30.  We went over on Sunday, but the rain the day before made it too muddy, so we did not want to risk compacting the soil. Today we are going to have more heavy rain, so after work I hurried over with a selection of plants and got them into the ground.  When it rains later they will get a nice drink and hopefully will not be beaten into the ground.

not planted

My patch is on the end of a section with about 7 other patches going off to the left.  The water at this location is in rain barrels and I believe the Village of Berkeley takes care of filling them when it doesn't rain.

planted

I did not have room for the three dahlias I got from the Garden Club and last year they did not bloom due to competition, so I brought those over and planted them at the south end of the garden.  I made two hills for squash, then I plated Kohlrabi, broccoli, and a few herbs.

There is really no more room here, but I have one tomato plant left and I may bring that over to try and fit it in.


The soil has a good amount of compost and a nice dark richness, however there is a high concentration of clay.  You can see in the image of the soil by one of the holes for the kohlrabi.

Kohlrabi is a cool season plant and it may bee too late to get a good crop from it as the days have turned rather hot, but I think they will be okay until July and we will see about harvesting the roots (like a turnip) and maybe also the leaves for a salad.

Here are the dahlias, three different varieties three different colors, but they are pinkish, I think.  I have the names but will have to look them up again to know for certain.

I planted an oregano, a common sage, some chives and flat leaf parsley.  I just could not have a garden with no herbs in it, so I chose a few duplicates.

Chives                                                   Oregano                                               Parsley                              

My only fear is that as I pulled up to plant there was a bunny running through the yard toward the back, so I may lose the parsley.

It will be interesting to see how this garden fares versus the one in Elmhurst.  I will continue to post a weekly update and if I need to another day of the week to update the second garden.  However, the second garden is between the Elmhurst garden and my apartment, so I can stop at both on the same day with out too much trouble.

Carrot & Kohlrabi Slaw recipe

Carrot & Kohlrabi slaw

Chik-fil-a used to sell (in Illinois anyway) a great carrot salad, which I have since learned is actually of French origin.  Recently I saw a recipe for carrot and kohlrabi slaw that made me think, this is what I can do with the plants I added late in the season to my garden. Grated kohlrabi gives this carrot salad a peppery, crisp edge.

2 bulbs kohlrabi

4 carrots

3 Tbsp. vegetable oil

2 Tbsp. cider vinegar

1 Tbsp. whole grain or Dijon-style mustard

1/2 tsp. sea salt

Freshly ground black pepper to taste

Directions:

Peel kohlrabi and carrots. Be sure to cut off all of the tough outer peel of the kohlrabi. Set them aside. In a salad bowl, whisk together the oil, vinegar, mustard and salt until well blended. Add pepper, if you like. Using the large holes on a standing grater or a mandoline set up for fine julienne, grate the kohlrabies and the carrots into the salad bowl. Toss everything together until the kohlrabi and carrot are evenly coated with the dressing. Taste and add more salt or pepper, if you'd like.

Marcy notes: Since I recently obtained a mandoline I decided to use it to make julienne slaw pieces rather than using my grater.  The texture is much firmer this way.

weekly update - July 14 - Tying Tomatoes

On July 13 I was selling my wares (see www.backyardpatch.blogspot.com) so I went out the garden on Monday and Tuesday instead.  There was a lot of rain this past week.  So much so that I did not need to water and the weeds did grow a bit from my lack of need to go to the garden.

taken 7-15-14

Everything is looking very green and really beginning to show growth.  The lettuces are going to seed and some will need to be removed soon.  The beans are climbing the trellis nicely and cucumbers and squash are blooming and beginning to produce.

acorn squash bearing fruit

Nice crop of beans

peas growing well - dwarf variety still getting rather tall

first zucchini

Tasks this week

The big task this week was to tie up the tomato plants that are not in cages.  We caged the better boy and the heirloom tomatoes just after planting back in May, but the smaller grape and cherry tomatoes I waited to see  what they would need.  We salvaged wood from a dumpster for this.  I could not believe our luck but the art museum must have been cleaning out a store room as they tossed 2 x 4s and thinner 1 x 2 that looked almost new and were 6 to 8 feet long.  We were able to create stakes 3 feet long for each of the tomato plants.

Chas did all the lumber cutting and placement of the stakes.  My job was to go back through and tie everything up.  I use a cotton twine for this.  the same twine I used for marking seed rows and creating trellis for peas and beans.

I quadrupled the twine and twisted the strands together to create a wide enough material that it would not cut into the branches of the plants. I tied each plant with at least two ties.  One near the base and one just above halfway up.  If the plants get taller, I have room for one more set of ties.

Now the tomatoes are upright, you can clearly see the basil and all the weeds we missed.

I removed the arugula and the butter crunch lettuce that we had not harvested.  The arugula was a target for pests and all the leaves were perforated with holes so I never harvested it in any great amount.  Once it started to go to seed i removed it to the compost bin.  The butter crunch went to seed when the weather turned hot after all that rain.  There was only one head of it left so I removed that to compost as well.  the mustard i am letting go to seed for the seed.  the micro green are still able to be harvest and the sorrel will be good for another month or more of harvesting.

In place of the lettuces removed we planted some Kohlrabi that was given to us by a friend.  I used the same planting technique as before, digging a hole twice as wide as the root ball, filling it with water and letting that soak in before placing the plant in and firming the soil.  They will be rather late in the year before we can harvest these, but we will see how they do.

Issues to address

The tomatoes plants are definitely dying back along the bottom.  I would have said this was due tot lack of sun, but I think it is something else as this garden gets more sun than any I have ever planted in.

There are some who say the soil suffers from a lack of calcium which is easily fixed.  The large amounts of rain we have had are going to cause a few other problems too I expect, like blossom end rot and black spot.