Last Week In The Garden
If you would have told me several years ago that the chicken field would become our main garden area, I probably would have laughed. The pallet garden was the first large space we planted and it was done with a boat load of wood chip mulch. While that is beginning to break down into some good soil four years later, it still has a ways to go. The chicken field, on the other hand, has had a lot more organic matter mixed in over the years and now contains some of our best garden soil.
Fava Beans
About half of the chicken field is now being taken up by fava beans. They were planted last fall, overwintered well, and are producing beans now.
Stewart is around 5’11” as a height comparison. We’ll pick from these for the next couple of weeks and then this area will, Lord willing, be planted with sweet potatoes.
Cilantro
We have two areas in which cilantro is planted plus more within the fava beans. A good portion of this cilantro was self-seeded from last fall and survived the winter here.
Needless to say we’re going to be trying to save seed from this batch.
Tomatillos
Remember when Annie planted tomatillo starts? Well, this bed is doing very well and these pictures are out of date as just yesterday the plants seemed about twice as large with small tomatillo papers hanging from the plants.
Green BeansÂ
The boys each requested a spot in the chicken field to plant. Beans were most needful so we gave Abram a bed big enough for a double row and a package of Kentucky Wonder green beans and sent him on his way.
This is what they look like now, except in real life they are nearly twice as big and are flowering. Note the spot where he ran out of seed and decided it wasn’t important enough to mention. 🙂
Sunflowers and Asparagus Beans
Elijah’s bed is a long row of yard-long asparagus beans planted with sunflowers to use as a living trellis. Â The beans are now climbing upward but not all of the sunflowers are strategically placed for bean climbing. So I hear Elijah is working on some cedar trellises today.
Summer Squash
The final element of the chicken field is a half-dozen or so summer squash plants. These are also now at least twice as big as the picture. I really ought to get you some up to date photos but it rained buckets again last night so I suspect even yesterday’s garden is not today’s.
Good to know your mulch is taking that long to break down. We did heavy wood mulch 4 years ago and finally removed it all a year ago. It simply wouldn’t break down enough to really make suitable gardening soil, especially in the areas where it was over primarily clay. I had attributed it to the short growing season we have in MN and that the mulch didn’t have enough time to break down from season to season. It also kept our soil temperatures to cold. Loved the idea of it, but it didn’t work well for us.
Your garden looks great. Hope all the rain that Texas seems to be getting is treating your land well.
Love seeing what you are growing in your garden. I am still planting a little each day (I’m up in Michigan.) Today, I put in pumpkins and spaghetti squash. If the thunderstorm holds off, I will be putting in radishes and carrots (intermixed.) Your cilantro looks great and it reminds me to go up and see how much re-seeded itself here. May need to plant some of that as well!
I love all your posts on garden, family, and fermenting! One day, homesteading is on my list but for now all I can do in our busy business world is to dream! Thank you for posting and for helping me to dream!!
That’s alot of beans! Do you sell the items from your garden or does it all go to feeding your family?
What a glorious garden! Being in Australia my garden looks sad sad sad…so it’s wonderful to see and read of the growth of yours! My broad beans ( fava beans ) are not even knee high yet 🙂
I read some time ago that pine bark woodchips actually take nitrogen from the soil as they break down, so hopefully you don’t have any of that in your gardens. It is widely sold here in Australia so many gardeners would be puzzled about poor performance in garden growth.