It's the Grand Rapids variety. I've had less luck with the Royal Oakleaf and Buttercrunch. But I'll have lettuce to serve up as a salad for Thanksgiving, which is something I had really hoped for. No peas to serve though. The growth of the peas has been less than stellar. I thought they would be both larger plants and more productive plants. I'll have to plant more of them (on a more petite trellis) next year, since the fruits are delicious.
I also planted some potatoes this weekend. It seems to be a bit debatable whether they should be planted in the fall or spring, so I decided to give it a try in the fall. If successful they will develop a really good root system over the winter so that when springtime comes around, they will grow like crazy. If not successful, they will rot and I'll add them to my compost pile and start over in the spring. I have this funny bag that I grow potatoes in, and add soil as they grow.
Other than watching my plants grow, my main garden task has been raking leaves. And raking more leaves. And raking even more leaves. It is amazing how many leaves my trees produce. And even though I have bags and bags of leaves, there are still lots of leaves still hanging on the trees. I like raking, but not to the exclusion of all else, which is what I fear these trees demand. I think I don't mind raking, in part, because I don't think of leaves as trash, but as organic matter. I decided my worms would never keep up, so I set up a compost pile in the back part of my yard where I'm throwing a portion of my leaf supply and excess kitchen scraps. The leaves I don't compost I will shred up and use as mulch. I'll still probably have more leaves than I have use for.
Here's a picture of my compost heap. Nothing pretty, for now. I'll give it walls as soon as my husband is finished with the pallets he has construction supplies stacked on. I saw a nice compost bin design using pallets a couple weeks ago. For now the heap works. It's only a week old, but I'll start turning it every couple of weeks to keep it from getting smelly. That seems to be the gist of it, as far as I can tell. I'm very new to this organic gardening thing. But I'll probably write a separate post about that later.
Nice blog!! Out here, I think they say peas have to be planted by mother's day. I think that's what it was -- I'll check with my gardening buddies. This is Beth, btw.
ReplyDeleteOh, and again, out here, I think potatoes can be planted any time.
I started yams in early summer and am hoping they survive the frosts to come back next year. They apparently take a year to mature, unlike regular potatoes which take less time.
ReplyDelete