Current Garden Events

There has been a bit of activity recently. We harvested and removed the last of the peas, broccoli, and beets. In the resulting void, we planted a special variety of popcorn most people use as Halloween decoration. The tiny dark red cobs of corn that are sharply pointed. It's a favorite treat of ours and easy to grow (if the birds will leave the germinating seeds alone). A few current events in the photo collage:

Top left: Onions. Set these out when they were about the size of individual blades of grass.

Top center: Garlic. Can't tell from a photo this far away, but onions and garlic are easy to tell apart, plus there's always the smell test. Bruise a leaf and you'll know which it is.

Top right: Kiwi. A new experiment this year. We'll see how they do. Looks like they are suffering a bit from iron chlorosis which is caused by pH chemically locking up iron in the soil. This causes leaves to turn yellowish and in severe cases white which is quickly followed by death of the plant. An iron spray should take care of this.

Bottom right: Frontenac grapes that have just set in the last few days. These can reach over 26% sugar when ripe - you can almost pour the juice directly on pancakes instead of syrup.

Bottom center: Onions under a bench. These got a little tall and started coming up through the seat. Between the two patches of onions shown here, we won't need to buy any at the store for the next year.

Bottom left: Wonderful Pomegranate blossom. These are now in full bloom. We have been spraying for fungus every two weeks for the past couple of months trying to ward off a fungal infection we had trouble with last year. Once the fruit is set these just need water until November.

Center: Current view into the center of the garden. The bare spot is where peas, broccoli, and beets were removed last week and (hopefully) red popcorn will soon be growing.