So this was a good day, mostly. I got my new fabric bed in the mail a few days ago but I underestimated its size and realized I needed more soil than I actually had.
A trip to the garden center was in order.
I got some blue lake green beans sets along with a replacement for my ailing chervil, a basil gamble and one last squash plant.
First a note on the chervil.
That does not look healthy. It’s the fact that it’s in a bed. This area of the garden, the shade herb bed, is shady in fall and winter. It’s also shadier in spring and summer. But we’ve been having very bright and windy days and that’s just been murder on the chervil. Murder on the parsley too, but that’s solvable.
The thyme doesn’t give a shit it’s huge.
To solve the evaporation problem on the parsley side, the answer is, as always, more mulch.
Just got to lay it on. As for the chervil…
Sometimes you just got to get a new plant. Healthy plant in a pot which will help with water conservation, and on the shade herb table in the shadiest possible spot in the garden. It’s a nice delicate herb chervil, hope this one takes.
In the long shot category, we have basil.
I have completely given up on Italian basil, and if I were to un-give up on it, it would go into a pot. They didn’t have any blue bush basil which is a shame, but they had some very healthy looking Thai basil. Slightly different flavor, but a heartier plant, which as you can see I’ve mulched the absolute heck out of. It’s still a crazy gamble, but it’s been so sunny… well, all gardening is a gamble really.
The squash was fun though.
See I’ve been growing pretty much all plain green zucchini, largely because it’s easier and mom likes them. But it occurred to me that I had a space for one more plant, and dad likes grey squash, so I got a “Magda” zucchini for him. It was a really healthy looking plant, and it’s a cinch to grow so no skin off my nose to put in an extra plant.
The beans went in easy, as beans tend to, I still mulched the heck out of them of course.
I also put some stakes down for them, I also have some netting that I think I’m gonna use for the trionfo beans.
The main issue today was turnips. They’d been growing slow, and were starting to bolt, no surprise there. One of the reasons I got this fabric bed to stash in the shadiest part of my garden was so I could grow the more temperature sensitive crops like lettuces and arugula and turnips in a shaded area of the garden.
The problem was cabbage fly. I had eaten a lovely turnip a week ago, small but tender, and was all set to pick the biggest few for tonight’s dinner. Only to discover all but one eaten up by cabbage fly maggots.
The one survivor was added to dinner, the rest were added to the compost bin. This is not my first tangle with cabbage fly. Years ago I had a whole lot of really beautiful turnips ruined by them. They’d been scarce as of late, and I thought I could get away with it, but it looks like our really wet start to spring helped the damn flies get off to a good start. Of course, while the damage cabbage fly can do to turnips is the most dramatic due to them eating the roots all up, cabbage fly can damage the roots of any brassica. SO tomorrow’s big task is going to be checking the roots of all my cabbage family crops for maggots or eggs and hand destroying and spraying the lot of them. And sadly I have a lot of brassicas.
This is the new bed. There was clearly a sewing error as you can see it’s a little lopsided. As I got it fairly cheap I suppose it would be bad form to complain about a minor cosmetic error so who cares.
I have quite a few plants I’m putting into this bed, including a few types of fancier lettuce, but these are some of my favorite Japanese vegetables that I picked up from the ferry building a few days ago and can’t wait to grow. Of course both are cabbage family crops so now that I know the cabbage flies are out I’m going to have to be extra vigilant. Both of these plants are quick growers, so it should be only a month from sprouting to harvest and then I can sow again. In between most of the lettuces I sowed some extra french breakfast radishes. I had sowed some radishes in front of the peas, and due to the extreme wet only about three came up.
This guy was my first to eating size. I cleaned it up and gave it to dad and he ate the whole thing leaves and all.
God bless him.
Well soon I’ll have many more, radishes are one of those plants you can tuck anywhere and they’ll mostly grow no matter what you do. Of course they are cabbage adjacent so I will once again have to be a little diligent sweeping for fly eggs.
In other not so good news, the red aphids have returned to the sun gold, and in the course of hand picking them, I made a truly bone-headed error.
This is the rose tip of my watering can, and as you can see, the inner part that has the little holes in it is missing. That’s because I set the can down to remove the aphids from the sun gold (and they only were on the sun gold which was weird) and I stepped on it. I heard a *ping* as the inner part went flying somewhere and I have no idea where it went. So while I will scour the garden in the morning hoping to find my missing part, I have a good idea I’m going to have to replace my watering can tip, possibly my watering can.
In the meantime, I have this little fellow playing back up. So what if he doesn’t hold much water, he has the right tip and he doesn’t just barf water out like a plain spout does. I could blame the aphids for this latest clumsy mistake, but I think it’s just my complete inability to see where I’m stepping.
I will of course blame the aphids anyways.
The Neanderthal Gardens 
those bags bother me, but for other reasons that I will not trouble you with. I do not use them. We still used old fashioned cans on the farm. They suit rhododendrons and camellias so well. I think that for us and our slow turnover crops, bags would age badly.
I will say that the smaller fabric bed I’m using for the Bok Choy has worked out fabulously- the plants are healthier then the ones in the “proper” wooden bed. The theory is that the fabric beds help with aerating the roots which is helpful to some plants and death to others- so in the case of brassicas at least it seems they’re helpful. Half the plants I’ve put in the new bed are brassicas the rest are lettuces. I agree that these types of beds are less useful for other plants. Agree on the age issue-TBH long term I’d like a couple of half wine barrel planters for the area the new bed is in- much better long term I think- I’m just trying to find some that don’t cost an arm and a leg you know? So for this season at least- I’m trying out this. Considering the price (super cheap) it’s worth one season or two of experimentation- saves me a little bit short term and long term I can get something better.
Bags certainly have their advantages. I am just no fan of them. Citrus likes bags, and do not rot, but I have not grown citrus since the early 1990s. Because citrus stand upright, and grow in neat rows with space between them, bags work better for that sort of exposure. Even though they are black, they do not absorb heat where exposed to sunlight like the black vinyl cans do. They get quite warm, but not hot enough to cook roots.
Barrels have gotten ridiculously expensive! We used to be able to get them quite cheap at Orchard Supply years ago. Those of us who did not mind cutting them ourselves could get them for free on the side of the road on Saratoga Avenue where Paul Masson Winery was. That would be wrong on so many levels now. I mean, the winery would not be allowed to put ‘trash’ out at the ‘curb’ now, and if they did, no one would take it because no one used fireplaces anymore. (The main appeal of the barrels was not for planters, but for kindling.)