Sunday Harvest - Garden and Yard.

Ok, so it's Monday - I ended up doing my gardening in the cool of the evening last night after spending a goodly portion of the day with the kids in the backyard and grilling up some steaks for Mothers day.

With temps rising steadily, it's been a busy week. Out at the farm prepping for the blueberry pick, both by hand and harvester. A couple of 'landscaping' jobs as well out that way. Also the installation of a pool for the kids as a 3rd Birthday present.
This should see them through to learning how to swim, then I'll put in a bigger and more permanent pool for them. I've already claimed this for when it's retired to be put into the aquaponics equipment store.  I'll be prettying up the area a little over the coming weeks - nothing too flash and with supplies I can repurpose at a later date.
This is a pretty common practice for me, as I have many projects of varying importance going on at any given time, and time/money don't always line up when it comes time for personal projects (such as my garden and gardening experiments).  Repurposing and advance buying of equipment goes a long way in making them happen.  When you go to pick up things for one project, get a little extra - 2 more 2x4's - when I do the watering system I'll get some extra fittings - plumbing? grab a couple of extra pipes and fittings if you can.
For a medium/large scale aquaponics project - one of the major expenses will be setting up a decent sized tank.  By the time we retire this as a swimming pool in a couple of years, I should have had ample time to do small scale experiments to dial my ideas in.

This month has been a mix of things going very well and others, not so much. The beans and peas I'd put down as going very well, and some lessons learned to apply later.  The trellis I put behind the peas is around 4 1/2 feet tall. They have exceeded that by a good foot to a foot and a half.  The 2 square feet holding 16 plants (8 on either side) have done quite well. This pic is after the Sunday first harvest. There are still lots of small pods on there - these are Asian Snow Peas, I use smaller pods in salads, so I keep them on the vine and pick them as needed for that - when the peas themselves get big, I'll pick and shell them.

 Not a bad pick for the first off the plants. The picture makes it seem less, but there 's a goodly selection of beans and peas.
After shelling there were about a cup of peas in there and a quart bag stuffed with fresh grean beans.  Enough to include in a meal for 3.
With plenty of beans still growing, and plenty of pea pods yet to fill out - I'm looking forward to seeing how it compares to next week.
It's clear that the logistics of producing EVERYTHING will require more plants, but I'm getting closer.

One of the beans, and not even the largest. It was interesting to continue the comparison between those mulched with worm castings and those that weren't.  The 2 squares that were produced bigger, fuller beans in a greater abundance - a noticeable amount.
The volume I can account for, but the fullness I had to think about - With all fertilizing, watering, and care identical, the answer I believe lies in the water retention qualities of the castings as mulch.  The soil post-mulching can soak up ridiculous amounts of water extremely quickly, and of course mulching in general helps lock that water into the soil and help keep it there rather than evaporating.   With the only other variable involved being the April/May rains we get here - I'm thinking those squares lock in the moisture much better - which gives more moisture it can pass onto the beans.  Anyways - that's my theory. If these numbers hold, I think next planting will be another 2 squares of snow peas or snap peas, a 6ft trellis, and 2 rows (8 squares) of beans - and stick to my mulching as soon as the beans hit their second leaves.  Hopefully by next planting my worm bins will be back to full production.

Radishes (bottom row between the carrots) I've been thinning down and not replacing.  2 squares of 16 has done pretty well with a nice spacing between maturity - that being said I have 2 quart sized bags of radishes in my fridge at the moment - and not much saladwise to go with them. I'll be replanting one of the squares when it empties.  Beets went up with a promising start, although they've been less than stellar since then. I think a combination of heat and watering are giving me less that great results.  I'm going to cut down their water by only watering them every 2nd water-day.  Hopefully this will promote better root growth (if they don't die).. In the back - turnip greens are getting bigger and bigger. My wife has to brush up on greens prep over the next week or so as I'll pull 2 squares and cook them on the night.  Replacements in those squares is undecided.

That about covers the Sunday harvest.  Spring is still early and I'll be looking into some of the shortcomings in the garden in another post.