Make Some Room for Some Summer

First: finish the bed I’d been putting off for months…. This will be for sweet potatoes and perhaps some bush beans of some sort this summer, but more importantly will allow for better rotation of some of the fall/winter/spring cycle crops over future seasons, mainly alliums (garlic, leeks, onions) and brassicas (kale/broccoli/cabbage/brussel sprouts). It will get proportionally more sun each day in the winter vs the summer and is in a frost friendly section of the yard (up the modest grade a bit).

The soil was excavated from the good compost rich spot where I grew okra last year (now occupied by the the frog pond) and mixed with my usual “soil free mix” of milled peat, vermiculite and compost.

(I had a few more bok choi, lettuce and 45 day cabbage starts leftover so I just stuck them in the end).

Second: Harvest some kale for the dual purpose of freeing up space and making a large batch of the soup I like so much (we will freeze most of it). This pile of Russian Red and Winterbor was only about 15% of what is available; there is going to be a lot of soup made in the next month if somebody doesn’t help me eat this (seriously, if you are local and would like some let me know, I’ll share).

Third: There was no “third”, so I’m just going to post some pictures from this weekend.

The “middle garden”
Front view

Middle view

Back view

Half and Half: Spring awakened Oregano on the left, the wintered over flat leaf Italian parsley on the right

Strawberry blooms and “green” berries: