I did things a little different this year. I wanted to see just how much food I could produce if I had to. I straddle zones 7a and 7b. I started off with the usual stuff for me, tomatoes, squash...winter and summer, purple hull peas, green beans, bell peppers and melons. I know I'm forgetting something. As soon as they looked like they were about done, we pulled them and replanted. We left the tomatoes but did another row that was left unplanted just for that purpose. We didn't replant the raised bed because it was a little late getting planted and we wanted it to be ready for fall stuff. We didn't rotate but amended the soil between rounds in our regular garden. It just wasn't possible to rotate because not everything finished at the same time.
I'm not sure I will do it next year unless TS really does HTF. I'm worn out. I still have a business to run and I know I complained about about several customers going out of business but now the ones that are left are ordering triple what they usually do...feel so blessed about that but I don't know how long it will last so I may be doing it all again...the garden I mean. The second crop of tomatoes is doing great and so are the bell peppers, peas and beans. I just wished I'd done it a couple weeks sooner. The squash was the best crop ever first round. Due to way too much rain and the squash needing rotated, it has been a failure this second round but it started out great.
This week I replanted the raised bed, just new this past spring. It's 5 x 25 and around three feet tall. I had a small trellis of experimental tomatoes that I left and a small row of bell peppers that are still producing. They will come out and I have cold hardy plants started to go in that little spot before the first frost. I laid the whole thing out like a patchwork quilt and it's my first full fledged fall garden. The left third is carrots, parsnips, chard and the tomatoes that will be replaced with kale and greens. The middle is beets and the bell peppers that will be replaced with kale and radishes direct sewn. The right third is a trellis of peas with more kale and mache and several short rows of lettuce grown MIGardener style linked below. I also tried his multi sowing method for beets. Also, we plan to do clear plastic on a frame over this bed to extend all the frost hardy stuff planted there.
Edited to add video is less than 14 minutes.
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dqlnQeKbX0o&ab_channel=MIgardener
I plan to plant turnips and mustard greens in two of the rows we cleared in our regular garden this weekend. They will eventually have covers too.
I'm sure I'm not the only one ramping things up. I'd love to hear what others are doing to produce more food.
I'm not sure I will do it next year unless TS really does HTF. I'm worn out. I still have a business to run and I know I complained about about several customers going out of business but now the ones that are left are ordering triple what they usually do...feel so blessed about that but I don't know how long it will last so I may be doing it all again...the garden I mean. The second crop of tomatoes is doing great and so are the bell peppers, peas and beans. I just wished I'd done it a couple weeks sooner. The squash was the best crop ever first round. Due to way too much rain and the squash needing rotated, it has been a failure this second round but it started out great.
This week I replanted the raised bed, just new this past spring. It's 5 x 25 and around three feet tall. I had a small trellis of experimental tomatoes that I left and a small row of bell peppers that are still producing. They will come out and I have cold hardy plants started to go in that little spot before the first frost. I laid the whole thing out like a patchwork quilt and it's my first full fledged fall garden. The left third is carrots, parsnips, chard and the tomatoes that will be replaced with kale and greens. The middle is beets and the bell peppers that will be replaced with kale and radishes direct sewn. The right third is a trellis of peas with more kale and mache and several short rows of lettuce grown MIGardener style linked below. I also tried his multi sowing method for beets. Also, we plan to do clear plastic on a frame over this bed to extend all the frost hardy stuff planted there.
Edited to add video is less than 14 minutes.
I plan to plant turnips and mustard greens in two of the rows we cleared in our regular garden this weekend. They will eventually have covers too.
I'm sure I'm not the only one ramping things up. I'd love to hear what others are doing to produce more food.
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