You don't need too dig deep

Yeah! Here we are Fall, Autumn, Harvest season!
Here are a few sample pics of some harvesting that's going on here in Boulder.

Adirondack Blue Potatoes, hard to spell good to eat! I Got these from Walmart, 5 plants for $3.98 . The ground is soaking wet (clay soil) the picture has probably 2 plants worth of potatoes. About $1.60 if my math is correct.

Cucumbers and beets, Yum!
These cukes are a little small but I've let many of them go too long so I'm being cautious and picking early.
Next year I need to stage my planting over a couple of weeks verses planting all the cucumbers at once.
If you look close at the beet greens you can make out a stringy weed. That's bind weed. It has taken over in the garden with all the rain we've gotten lately (yes I'm blaming the rain).

Above is an August planting of Burpee's Cherry Belle Radish

This is actually 3 squash plants taking over

The Cocozelle Squash continues to produce reliably. We are trying to cook them into everything from stir fry to zucchini bread. We still have enough to hand some over the fence to our gardening friends.

 The rain and the hay fork have done wonders in the past few weeks to the compost pile.

 The asparagus bed is not taking off like I hoped but I realize this can take some years. I continue to add compost and weed on a semi regular basis. It is luckily located closest to the compost pile.

Above is the rhubarb raised bed. It is doing wonderful!

The honeybees are still working the borage. The borage falls down but continues to grow and bloom until it freezes. Its been blooming for several months now.
I've heard that borage flowers refill their nectaries within minutes, which is why the honeybees love it. However below is a close up of this girl with what looks to be borage pollen.

Does anyone know if borage produces pollen?

 Another winner is the Blue Hyssop from Baker Heirloom it has bloomed continuously for months. This is a perennial here in zone 5, it is in its second year.  The flowers are fewer and fewer in the season as the seeds develop. I'll spread these seeds to other areas of the garden to get more of this for the bees.

Dividing Rhubarb

August 2011

My rhubarb has been growing in this spot for 2 seasons. It’s a Victoria cultivar and had 3 seed shoots early in 2011. I cut the seed shoots off as soon as they were big enough to identify as seed pods to encourage vegetative growth. This was a new raised bed and I added a lot of compost during and after planting the store bought root.

March 16, 2012

I decided to split this plant last season but haven’t gotten around to it. And now with a week of warm weather this years shoots are starting to form letting me know hurry or wait till next year. I was surprised by the size and spread of the roots and broke several digging out the mass. I think a digging fork would have helped. I’ll have to keep my eyes open at garage sales or add it to my Christmas list.

Cleaned root ball

After digging the root mass up, I used a garden hose to wash away the dirt to identify good spots to cut.  The theory is that each cutting needs roots and buds. I used my trusty digging spade got four pieces, two big ones and two that fall into the maybe category. 

 

I planted all four in a newly built raised box filled with soil from the old box and some horse manure I picked up last week. The manure is so-so composted and I’m hoping not too fresh to burn the roots. I wouldn’t suggest using manure on plants that I intend to eat early in the season especially those whose edible parts are in contact with the ground such as root crops or asparagus. After putting all four divisions in their new home, this one is 3ft square (vs. triangular). I watered them well and returned the runaway earthworms I found in the lawn. 

 

I’m eager to see how I did. I might even sneak a few stalks late this year. Should be lots of pies in 2013!