July 2022
Realized I posted an update in the wrong thread a while ago, oops. Here’s a quick update for July:
Onions
I have started harvesting and curing some of our onions. This was my first year planting them, and I learned a lot. Mainly that they don’t like full sun + I should’ve planted them a tad deeper. But we still got a good crop and there’s more to pull soon.
What they look like in the dirt as their tops fall over:
Curing in the basement:
If anyone has any hot onion curing tips, I’m all ears. My understanding is that they just need to be a dry cool environment for a few weeks to toughen up so they’ll be storage-ready but ???
Wildflowers
Kinda a mixed bag on the sunflowers and wildflowers this year as well. I tilled up the dirt in a few areas but didn’t mix any compost or other amendments when sowing my seeds. I had a very low germination rate, unfortunately (I also think I ended up feeding the birds more than anything lol).
Squash
In better news, I have successfully combated the squash bugs this year by picking them off and drowning them in soapy water. No incursions on the plants to speak of right now! We are starting to get some nice butternut squash forming, and the pumpkins are blooming too.
MegaLettuce
I am letting some of the lettuce I grew in the spring go to seed to replant in the fall. It makes a really neat tower formation. It feels very Dr.Seuss!
Tomatoes
And of course, I have tomatoes growing too. The tomatoes had a brief episode of blossom end rot that I corrected with a mix of crushed up tums + eggshells + garden sulphur. I removed the affected fruit so the plant wouldn’t put any more energy into them, and the problem seems to be corrected on new fruit now!
Corn
The corn is finally starting to create ears on some of the stalks! I am hoping that the wind will pollinate them so I don’t have to hand-pollinate like when I grew them in containers. Fingers crossed.
Harvests
And finally, a look at some of my harvests thus far. Homemade pickles (still refining crunchiness levels), wild blackberries (still lots of those to harvest), first tomatoes and cucumbers. I’m hoping to get potatoes up soonish as well-- though I’ve been fighting some potato beetles on them, so we’ll see how that goes.
Bonus forgotten update: I also tried my hand at pickling my radish harvest a couple weeks ago. These were a lot more crispy than the cucumber pickles, so far I think I like them a bit better:
