Saturday, September 20, 2008

Fall vegetable and orange progress

The seeds I sowed September 8th, based on organic gardener Tim Miller’s moon cycle schedule, seem to be happy seedlings so far, especially the mesclun.


mesclun (front) and buttercrunch lettuce


romaine


kale

So I continued today by adding carrot (Danvers 126) and beet (Detroit Dark Red) seeds to the dog-fenced raised bed. Only one broccoli seedling has appeared because I sowed the broccoli in the bed that’s not yet dog-fenced and the dog napped there the first morning of cooler weather. Oh well. I’ll add some transplants in November.


broccoli

I've been working hard in the non-vegetable realm, too. In some bare spots of the sunniest parts of the front yard, I added a bunch of gray santolinas (Santolina chamaecyarissus), along with a little culinary sage (Salvia officinallis) and Italian oregano (Origanum x majoricum). I even continued my new bravery with orange, adding an orange lantana to the existing purple lantana and verbena. Good sore muscles.


existing gray santolina (foreground) plus six new ones


trailing lantana and verbena

6 comments:

Rock rose said...

I'll be interested to know how the romaine works out. I have started a few vegs already. I know the chard will be Ok but I'm thinking that I planted the bok choi too early. The heat is still unremitting. What I am doing now is potting up and holding until it gets cooler.

TexasDeb said...

I have timing envy. Roofers are hard at work all around here so I can't plant certain areas that are still subject to move from bed to construction zone at a moment's notice.

Once they are gone I hope to rejoin you in getting some plants in the ground with either winter eating or spring/summer color for 09 in mind.

My mizuna plants have outlasted the summer heat without bolting - giving us a fairly steady (but small - I only tried 2 plants) of mustard leave to liven up salads all summer.

I hope to have lots of arugula this fall/winter as well. Thanks for leading the way.

Iris said...

The veggie experiment is exactly that, an experiment, as I have precious little experience!

But I do have an optimistic attitude and figure if this method fails, I'll have time to buy transplants.

I just wish I didn't have to STILL spend extra time WATERING my front yard drought-tolerant plants. No rain in the forecast for yet another week. Yikes.

Annie in Austin said...

Lettuce-type plants are something we haven't tried in Austin - hope your experiment works out and the dog-proof fence works out, too!

Anthony's photos at CompostBin blog have just about convinced me to try Swiss Chard.

Annie at the Transplantable Rose

vertie said...

Looking good, Iris! It looks like it might even be time for you to thin some of those seedlings. My lettuce seeds didn't turn out so well as I wasn't so good about watering.

Iris said...

Thanks, Vertie! Are you referring to needing to thin the mesclun seedlings, mostly? Do I just dig some up and spread them out?