A Walk Through my Vegetable Garden

Summer is here and my Vegetable garden is well under way!  

Last summer I harvested some lettuce, a few peas, beans, corn and squash (not nearly enough to feed us once a week for a month) and NO butternut pumpkins and NO watermelons.  

But I got buckets and buckets full of tomatoes!  The tomatoes just didn’t stop, and I was able to harvest tomatoes well into the middle of winter!  

My herb garden thrived over the past year yielding thyme, rosemary, marjoram, celery, parsley, basil, spring onions and yarrow.

For the winter season I had plenty of peas in the beginning of the season and one bed of carrots.

  

I knew one bed would not even be enough carrots to sustain our family for one week (carrot salad is a standard side dish for supper), but the idea was to see how it goes, if my soil was right this time. We have terrible clay soil and in the past had NO carrot harvest.  I also wanted the children to experience pulling their own carrots!  

And they did!

We could start harvest carrots in October, and it become a ritual for the little ones to pull their own carrots, while I watered the garden, every morning.  Sadly, I had to clean up the bed two weeks ago.

I believe I had such a marvelous tomato harvest, because I’ve put all my time and efforts into the tomatoes.  

I studied tomatoes and looked after my little tomato plants with great care. So, I decided from now on to focus on one specific vegetable in a season, study it and try to make a success out of it.  This way I will not waste my time and money on a variety of vegetables with little or no success.  

With tomatoes I know now more or less what work, and decided to focus on pumpkins for this season!  Yes, I desperately want to harvest pumpkins!

I only plant heirloom seeds in my vegetable garden and get my seeds mainly from Livingseeds.  

Over the past two years, I got quite a number of different seeds, from various heirloom seed suppliers.  The seed packages were all just thrown in a box, so in the beginning of this season, I organized my seeds in a filing box.  

I attached the seed envelope to cardboard.  On the cardboard I can make notes whether the specific seed fit into our climate, what kind of soil worked and success or failure.

Since I started my vegetable garden two years ago, I yearned for a permanent hot box. 

Every summer we had to repair our cardboard hot boxes. 

This September, Christo and the boys, built me a permanent hot box. 

This hot box can take 24 seedling trays at a time.

The men did a great job on the hot box and it works perfectly.  

It has air holes, which I can cover with masking tape when it is cold outside, or open when it is too hot outside. 

It also have growing bulbs inside.  

The box fit on a piece of wood, so I can carry the seedling trays outside on warm days. 

It is painted with a waterproof paint, so I can water the seedling trays without damaging the wood.

I sowed my first seeds the third weekend of September and by the end of September the first plants were ready to be transplanted in the ground.  

Another huge improvement in our vegetable garden was cutting down the last trees in the current designated patch for the vegetable garden.

First were the one small tree in the right corner of the vegetable garden.  

We took it out during the winter months to open up more son for the existing raised beds.

In October it was time to take out the last and biggest tree.  This tree had split in two, three winters ago and though we tried to save it, it had a very strange look and this past winter split again. There was no way we could save it anymore.  

CJ and Josua was a great help for Christo, and the little ones enjoyed playing between the branches! 

Now the vegetable garden looks much bigger and with a little imagination, it could actually give the impression of a vegetable garden!

This summer I sowed 5 varieties of pumpkin, peas, 3 varieties of bush beans, lettuce, watermelon and cucumber.  

Cucumber is a first for me, and I thought I would just give it a try, alongside the pumpkin.  

I also sowed our rainbow corn, harvested during the previous summer season, directly into the ground. 

I didn’t need to sow one tomato seed. We took out the previous season’s tomato plants in July, and since I knew they liked these particular beds, I just let it rest until it was time to plant my tomatoes. 

Great was my surprise when early spring came and tomato plants sprouted in clusters all over the two beds! 

A few weeks ago I thinned them out, and replanted some of them.  I sure have more tomato plants than the previous summer season.

In the past two weeks I’ve start finger prune the small side shoots, also called suckers, growing between the main stem and the leaf stems, and gently pinch these off with my fingers.  

I have no idea how many plants I have on the three different varieties I grew the previous season, but sure do look forward to a plentiful harvest, again! 

The tomatoes we grew last year were stacked against wood trellises and by the end of the season it couldn’t hold the tomatoes any more. 

So, Christo and the boys are busy making me iron trellises.  

In the process the boys learn working with metal which includes welding skills.  Josua paints it with metal paint to keep it from rusting. 

It seems like I’m into a vertical garden this Summer!

So far my pumpkins are doing great. 

I’ve planted honey suckle in the same beds as the pumpkins to attract bees, and also do hand pollination every morning.  

I already have two big pumpkins, 

but there were also a few pumpkins who slipped through during the hand pollination process :-(

We already harvested some peas;

plenty of beans;

and Lettuce!

Yarrow are growing everywhere!

And the Fig tree is full of promise too!

I also only wet the garden by hand, which do take a lot of time, but I see it as part of my summer program! 

Who of my blog friends has a vegetable garden and how are your gardens going? Please share in the comments below.

Much love

Linnie

"Moreover I will appoint a place ... 

and will plant them, 

that they may dwell in a place of their own, and move no more;"

2 Sam 7:10

PS. This was God's promise to me 7 years ago, after we rented different houses for several years. 

I pleaded with God for a place where I could grow a garden of my own!

Thank you, Lord!

My First Tomatoes and Some Tips!

On Wednesday night we picked our first tomato!

We picked it, cut it into 9 pieces and every one of the family (except little Michael - who didn’t mind) had a taste of a ripened on the vine, organic, non genetic modified tomato! 

And it tasted totally different, even compared to the organic tomatoes we receive from the Ethical Co-op!

This year my tomatoes are doing extremely well!  I guess I had to go through the trial year,  I made mistakes (some bigger than others), I had disappointments but got the hang of growing a specific vegetable.  There is a difference in reading all the right books and websites on growing a specific vegetable and to learn by experience! That is what happened with my tomatoes.  This year I’m in the trial of growing my own pumpkins, watermelons and corn (more in another posting).

Last year my tomatoes was doing relatively good for a first time, but although we planted almost the same amount of tomato plants as this year, the harvest wasn’t nearly big enough, to last us during summer.  This year I foresee that we will not need to buy any tomatoes, once they start to ripen!

 

There are dozens of well formed, healthy tomatoes hanging from the plants!

Some things I’ve done that could possibly have made the difference:

Sown my Own Seeds

I’ve sown my own heirloom seeds, in organic worm cast. I bought seeds from Living Seeds and Being Plants.

Plant Strong Plants

I’ve made sure they are strong young plants before I replanted them. I also only replanted them when I was sure the temperature of the beds were warm enough - tomato plants love warm temperature.

The previous year I replanted it too quickly, before the soil temperature could climb and due to my impatience, I lost a few young plants.  This year I lost only one plant!

Mature, Worm- and Nutrient Rich Vegetable Beds

My beds were well prepared with mature, worm- and nutrient rich soil. I once read from Sean Freeman at Living Seeds - healthy plants won’t get diseases.  How do you make sure you have a healthy plant - make sure the soil is full of nutrients and don’t use any pesticides, ensuring a balanced ecosystem. 

Since we have only clay soil, I have to redo the soil of every single bed.  I don’t have any soil available, so the soil in the beds are made up of horse manure (I get it for free from CJ’s horse riding school), peanut shells, Phillipi sand and my home made compost.  But often when I start a new bed the horse manure isn’t mature enough and I don’t have nearly enough hand made compost.  I choose two of last year’s beds for my tomatoes, ensuring the soil is mature.  I only topped it up with a layer of horse manure, Phillipi sand and compost.  As CJ was working through the soil, there were hundreds, maybe thousands of earthworms - a sure sign of nutrient rich soil.

Liquid Fetrilizer

I periodically gave the little plants my liquid fertilizer - Bokashi.  Since I’m in my trial year for pumpkins and watermelons, I had to used almost all my Bokashi for them, but I could manage to spare some Bokashi for the tomato plants.

Finger Pruning

I constantly finger prune the small side shoots, also called suckers, growing between the main stem and the leaf stems, and gently pinch these off with my fingers. 

The side shoots only create a lot of leaves, which take energy away from the rest of the plant and few to no fruit.

In my opinion, pruning my tomato plant is one of the most important things to do towards a healthy tomato plant.

Remove Bottom Leaves

As soon as the plants was about a meter high, I started to remove the leaves from the bottom 30cm of the stem to allow air to circulate through the entire plant and light from beneath.   Removing the bottom leaves is an ongoing proses as the plant grows and the bottom leaves become bigger and tend to grow down-wards. I’ve observed these are usually the first leaves to develop fungus problems. They get the least amount of sun and soil born pathogens can be unintentionally splashed up onto them.

Hand Watering

This year, I only hand water the plants - no water by sprinkle system and only in the morning, at the latest 11h00.  My mother-in-law believes when you water in the afternoon, the ‘wet plant’ will more easily develop diseases in the cool afternoon air. So although it is much more pleasant to be in the garden in the cooler afternoon, I try to be in the garden as early as possible (that varies depending on the night I had with my two babies) and be finished by 10h00 - preferably 08h00! I carefully water the plants to make sure no soil splash up against the plants’ stem and leaves - this way no soil-borne diseases are caught.  

Stacking

Every day while I’m hand watering the tomato stools, I make sure they are securely stacked against the trellis. 

It is very interesting to see how pumpkins and peas can tie themselves to the trellis, but not the case with tomato stools. 

Their tendency is to lay on the ground! 

I constantly have to stack my tomato stool and the sooner the better, or the plant will break when you stack it.

Old stockings works perfect to support a stalk, heavy with ripening tomatoes.

Remove Yellow or Wilting Leaves

I gently pinch off any leaves that are turning yellow or wilting on the tomato plant.

We are now only in the beginning of the harvest and I’ve learned you can lose your whole harvest within days, when it catch a disease, but I’m full of high hopes. 

Pruning and tending to my tomatoes is an every other day process, but for me it is also therapeutic and often a time I meet God and receive revelations (more of that in another posting) and now I’m starting to see a harvest I’m very proud of. I can’t wait to have a tomato salad, made only from the harvest in my garden!

David proudly showing off with his harvest of tomatoes this morning!

With love

Linnie