My strawberries have multiplied like crazy this year, which is why they didn’t produce as much. Lesson learned: next year I will make sure they won’t be too crowded. This month I finally had time to split my strawberries plants that I had in 1 container. There were probably 60 or 80 plants and I distributed only 12 strawberries between 2 containers. The other ones I gave them to my fellow members of the local backyard growers group.
I created a potting mix from the old potting mix that I used last year, to which I added bark, garden lime and osmocote.
Strawberries in the original container
Bark
Newly transplanted strawberries
Extra strawberries
Because I had so many persimmons, I started to look for creative ways to use them. I used them in smoothies in the past, made cookies, delicious persimmon bread and now I decided to make jam from both varieties. The fuyu persimmons jam was very good, but the one from hachiya persimmons was very disappointing. I think a few of the persimmons were not completely ripe and they ruined the entire jam! The consistency was weird and the taste super astringent. Another lesson learned and proof that not only one bad apple, but also one bad persimmon can ruin the bunch.
Fuyu persimmons
Fuyu jam
I’m growing potatoes for the first time. I planted them in the second part of November and now they are stating to sprout. Feeling very excited!
In the month of October, I continued planting the cool season vegetables: onions, cauliflower, broccoli, lettuce, arugula, carrots, spinach, Fava beans and peas.
I also transplanted the sequoia strawberries in a bigger container. The small plant purchased last year multiplied and I had to move it into a bigger container. I transplanted 6 plants in a big rectangle container.
Strawberries in original pot
New container
Sequoia strawberries transplanted
I removed most of the remaining basil plants and amended the soil with steer manure. Afterwards I prepared the rows and planted the lettuce, arugula and spinach seeds. I also planted yellow onion bulbs and transplanted the broccoli and cauliflower seedlings.
Garden bed
Garden bed after I removed the basil plants
Steer manure
I mixed the steer manure with the soil
Onion
Cauliflower seedlings
Broccoli seedlings
Lettuce
Arugula
Spinach
Another project was to remove the weeds from another space in my garden where I had the summer squash and zucchini and plant cool season plants. I amended the soil with steer manure and planted carrots, arugula, radishes and Fava beans.
Prepared the space
Added steer manure
Mixed the steer manure with the soil
I soaked the Fava beans in water for 24 hours before planting
Planted the Fava beans
Rows for carrots, radishes and arugula
The last project was to plant the peas in 5 gallon pots. They are growing very fast: they spouted in 1 week and 3 days later they were already around 4-5″ tall.
During the second half of September, we had a few days with temperatures in the 80s and I was able to do some work in the garden. I had to relocate mature plants to make space for the cool season plants. I didn’t want to be late with my cool season plants like last year, so I decided to start early.
One of the tomato plants was getting infested again with a lot of spider mites. The spider mites love the heat and low humidity weather that we’ve had lately and they multiplied fast. I removed most of the leaves and sprayed the plant again with neem oil.
Tomato plant with spider mites
Same plant after I removed the majority of the leaves
The cucumber plants that were in the ground stopped producing fruits for some time. So I decided to remove them to allow more sun to get to the peppers and eggplants.
Before
After
In order to make space for the cool plants in the garden beds, I removed and relocated a few mature plants. I removed the celery, arugula and strawberry plants from the garden bed where the big tomato plant is. I purchased a new type of garden soil, Amend from Kellogg, and I mixed it into the existing soil. Afterwards, I planted parsnip, carrots, beets, onions and radishes.
Because my seedlings are not ready to be transplanted outside yet, I purchased 6 seedlings of purple broccoli and transplanted them in the same garden bed.
Celery
Amend
A layer of Amend on top of the soil
Amend mixed with the soil
Holes ready for seeds
Parsnip
Carrots
Onions
Purple broccoli
I used the homemade compost in another garden bed. Because it was enough to cover only about 75% of the space, I will use planting mix and manure for the other 25%.
Compost
Garden bed with homemade compost
Relocate mature plants
Last year I compromised my cool season plants because I didn’t remove or relocate mature plants and I planted the cool season crop between a few leftover plants from the warm season. Another mistake was that I transplanted seedlings too late in the fall. Hence this year I decided to do it right and start fresh with my garden beds and a little earlier.
Relocate strawberries
As space is always a problem in my garden, I was planing to relocate the strawberry plants in pots. But after I read an article on Greg Alder’s blog in which he had transplanted strawberries next to the fruit trees, I got inspired to do it the same way.
First I prepared the new location next to my apple tree, by removing the layer of wood chips. Afterwards I watered the place a few times to be sure the water gets at least 4″ deep and made holes for the strawberry plants to go in.
Next I removed the plants from the old location and cut all the runners to have only individual plants and placed them in holes in the new location.
New location
Watered well before transplanting
Holes for the plants to go in
Strawberries to be relocated
Removing the strawberries
Individual plants after removing the runners
Strawberries in the new location
Extra plants placed in water
Next to the strawberries I had a few arugula plants that needed to be relocated also. I decided to move them into the other bed with homemade compost. I also watered the new location until the water got at least 4″ deep into the soil, and then I relocated the arugula plants.
Old location
New location
Relocate parsley
Because I moved my blackberry plants from the 5 gallon pots into bigger ones, I also had to relocate the parsley plants. As a result of that, I moved them next to the arugula plants as the space was already prepared.
Old location
Parsley
New location
Transplanting blackberry
I created the new potting mix needed to transplant the blackberry plants. In order to do that I took the old potting mix from the parsley plants and mixed it with bark, peat moss, perlite, fertilizer and garden lime. The experiment with the potting mix tried during the quarantine wasn’t successful, so now that I could get all the ingredients, I did it by the original recipe.
In the beginning of the month, when we had the record heat wave, I moved the blackberry plants in the shade next to some trees. And surprise, all the tips the touched the soil developed roots. I cut them and placed them in 4″ pots, hopefully I will get more plants by next year.
Old potting mix
Ingredients for the new mix
Rooted blackberry tips
Cuttings from the tips
Blackberry
Transplanted in box
I decide to transplant the other Blackberry plant directly into the ground, so I can see if it will be a difference between the plants next season.
Blackberry plant transplanted in the ground
Transplanting raspberry
A friend planted a few raspberry plants last year and he harvested a lot of fruits this year. Since my kids love to eat berries, I want to give it a try. The variety that I found is called Willamette.
Next year I should have strawberries, blackberries, blueberries and raspberries if everything goes well. We’re all looking forward to it!
Raspberry
Another project was to fertilize the papaya, dragon fruit and artichoke plants. I finally found some chicken manure at Armstrong gardens.
Papaya
Dragon fruit
Artichoke
This month I tried for the first time the air layering of cherimoya and fig trees, hopefully I will have positive results in a month or two.
My zucchini and summer squash were getting too big for the containers I had them in and they needed to be transplanted outside. I removed the radishes in the picture below to make space for zucchini.
I added half a bag of potting soil and mixed it into the ground.
I had 1 zucchini plant left and 4 summer squash. I planted the zucchini next to my other 2 zucchini plants that I transplanted a few weeks ago (bottom part of the picture).
I also planted radishes next to the zucchinis.
The next project was to add more potting soil to a grapevine that I got from a friend.
I prepared a mix using old soil from another pot, added two 5 gallon buckets of wood chips, one 5 gallon bucket of peat moss, half bucket of perlite and half bucket of steer manure.
I took the grapevine out of the pot and added the new mix at the bottom and sprinkled some starter fertilizer on top of it. I placed the plant on top of it and watered it.
Armstrong Garden was giving free strawberry plants with a purchase when I bought the ladybugs 2 weeks ago. I transplanted it into a bigger pot using the potting mix I just made.
My radishes and lettuce planted on January 11 as shown in this post were getting too big and overgrowing the peppers and eggplants. I removed all the radishes and most of the lettuce.
We made soup from the harvested lettuce.
I transplanted 2 peppers and 3 eggplants and filled up this garden bed.
