Time for a mid-season update on the 100 Mile Diet.
As I have previously blogged, the front yard garden has been expanding. Having spent some of my formative years on a small farm, I have difficulty leaving a patch of soil as a useless patch of lawn. I like to grow food.
Last fall we planted two of the smaller beds with garlic. And now, a couple of weeks ago the garlic was ready for harvest so that freed up those two beds for replanting.
The decision then was, what to put in those beds that will grow and produce before the end of the season?
I decided to take a chance with one bed of green bush beans and I have been very pleasantly surprised by their growth.
These beans were seed-sown on July 6th and by the end of the day on July 11th they were sticking their little beanie heads up and out of the ground.
The next thing that was ready for harvest was the potato patch. The squeals of delight my kids have as they dig potatoes makes it all worthwhile.
It wasn’t a large harvest this year, although we would often go out to the patch and dig up a plant just for that evening’s dinner.
At harvest we had about 20 pounds in the basket.
Of course that opened up another bed for a second crop and the kids decided to plant more beans. Those beans are now sprouted and doing just fine.
The second garlic bed was replanted with two types of carrots. One is called Purple Haze and the other is Ya Ya.
I see a rock and roll theme there…Hendrix and the Stones? Anyone else see that? The carrots are slower to sprout than the beans were so I am not holding my breath for their arrival.
Later on when the rest of the beet, kale and greens bed is harvested I am considering a fall planting of kale (can you ever get enough kale?).
We will also do one of the beds in garlic again this fall. We rotate what goes in each bed so that the soil doesn’t get tired and the pests don’t settle in too much.
Any thoughts? What should I put in for a fall/winter crop other than kale?