I have six crops left in my raised beds right now. Tomatoes, pumpkins, green beans, ground cherries, zucchini and sunflowers (do sunflowers count? I am saving their seeds after all…) The photos above are my quickly ripening cherry romas and stupice. My tomatoes are doing so beautifully this year. They are so heavy with fruit. Tomorrow I think I am going to harvest my first zucchini, technically it will be my second but the first was damaged by hail and went soft.

I am amazed with how much I have learned since building my beds this Spring, most notably I have learned not to underestimate the amount of shade a tree casts. But beyond repositioning my beds due to the elm tree (which I have typed about previously) I have a little list of other things I need to improve. For starters, I need to focus more on amending my soil. In addition to compost I am going to add rotted manure to my beds as my soil is still somewhat nitrogen deficient (which is relatively common in this area apparently.) For a longer term solution to that problem I am also going to start growing more varieties of beans next year, Empress (which I am growing and seed saving this year,) Good Mother Stallard and Hidatsa Shield. maybe cowpeas again too… Beans are a legume, which is a nitrogen-fixing plant. Once they die the nitrogen fixed in their roots is released, making it available for other plants to use. I didn’t know that until recently, I thought that beans constantly released nitrogen.

Water, that is an area that could use improvement too. I use an oscillating sprinkler to water my yard, including my beds, but that can make the leaves (and fruit!) if my beds more prone to disease. Luckily I haven’t had too much of an issue with that this year since it has been so hot and dry, but I can’t bank on luck every year. Drip irrigation works best from a gardening and water conservation standpoint and I could invested in soaker hoses, but given the chance I like to try to stay low cost. I have been considering collecting 2 liter soda bottles and making my own watering stakes. I am still undecided though. Eitherway I am also collecting 2 liter bottles to make sub-irrigation planters for my transplants next year, problem is I never drink soda so I have been asking around to get them from my friends who do (if you are one of my local friends, can I have your bottles?) One man’s trash is another’s treasure right?

Look at my little sugar pie pumpkin! (Please ignore the bolting cilantro beside it.) I am looking so forward to making pumpkin pie from scratch this fall. My pumpkins remind me of two things I need to keep in mind next year which go hand in hand, plant spacing and better planning. Two of my pumpkin vines climbed out of my raised beds and having grown six feet away from them (towards the sun in fact, since they are in the bed shaded by the elm.) I will have to keep a closer eye on them next year so I can train them into the spaces I want. I want to do better with my planning next year too (and I have all winter to plan so I am not overly concerned.) Both planning plant placement and successive sowings. This year I have managed to supplement our diet a bit this summer but I will not have much to preserve (except tomatoes and maybe pumpkin.) I want to remedy that over time, so that I grow more and more of our food. Experience will help me there.

I wish learning worked a little more like it does in The Matrix and I could just download information right into my brain and instantly know all these little trial and error lesson and so much more. Granted it probably wouldn’t be as much fun then.