Garden Harvest

Then

We are well under way in the Navarrette house to a bountiful 2011 harvest.  We didn't learn from last years crop, so once again we have billions of tomatoes, 34 plants to be exact, 11 varieties! Yikes what are we doing? Along with the over abundance of tomatoes, we planted 3 types of garlic, something missed from last year, a silver and a rose variety, onions, walla walla, red and white, peas, 2 types of egg plant, beans, fennel, leeks, dill, corn, 3 types of carrots, tomatillos, watermelon, cantaloupe, 6 or 7 varieties of pepper plants, raspberries and blackberries from last year (some of which we moved to a new location but the spread from last years are still coming up in the old location), patty pan squash, artichokes and volunteers from the butternut squash we cooked last November and tossed the seeds into the compost - they are coming up all over at least a dozen, most of which we have shared or put into the weed pile, else we'd have a billion of those too.  We pulled the swiss chard out from last year although it was growing strong, the aphid population was overwhelming, homemade spray (Dawn soap and water) along with the addition of ladybugs could not keep them at bay.  Our Citrus grove (ha ha) has gone from lemon and blood orange trees to include, a bearrs lime, a kieffer lime, an Australian Finger Lime, Ruby Red Grapefruit, and unknown lime and Tangerine (gifts).  Along side those we have a mango and avocado, and for fragrance an allspice tree. 


Two years ago David started ~10 pomegranate trees from cutting of our old tree, this year they all will all be bearing fruit!  And our first round of grapes went in - 35 zinfandel!

and now

We have seen AMAZING growth and in short periods of time.  We chose to plant limited amounts of certain items, just enough to feed the two of us, even with Caitlin taking some things,  planting in rotations so that not everything would come to fruition at the same time.  The peas were great, some to the height of 5' tall and PACKED to the gills.  The beans have been just enough to eat while we were out watering and weeding, something was eating at the young growth; so our strategic planting wasn't quite good enough, and it wasn't the dogs this time, although they did get at the peas!  Along with the abundance of growth we have seen and abundance of critters.  As I stated earlier, the aphids were awful and the earwigs, well they are there too.  There have been articles written that favor the natural/organic way of gardening that claim that everything has a place in one's garden and I do know that's true, but there have to be ways to keep them off the food and to focus on the critters that they are to eliminate in the garden.


I have found the link below to be very helpful with respect to the earwigs whose harvest will only get bigger as the tomatoes come in.  Take a quick read - hope this helps others to.  Happy Harvest all!


http://www.ipm.ucdavis.edu/PMG/PESTNOTES/pn74102.html