Here is what the garden is looking like about 3 weeks after the first batch of compost tea. We have lived in the new house for 6 weeks exactly. Our plants have been thriving in their new soil and sunshine. I have brewed 3 batches of compost tea total so far; the first 3 weeks ago, and the second and third last weekend. My goal is to fertilize with compost tea every 2 weeks until the end of harvest in October or so.
I made 2 last weekend, about 3 days apart, because I forgot to de-chlorinate my hose water, however with further investigation discovered that Oakland does not chlorinate the water. So all three batches should have been full of that beneficial bacteria that I'm looking for that comes from the 'live' compost.
I also pruned my tomato plants to ensure that all their energy goes into fruit production, rather than leaf production. This has spurred the plant's main stems to grow faster vertically rather than produce a lot of low lying foliage. Also, as you can see, I finally mulched my garden now that my babies are big enough to not get squished by the straw.
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| Pea vines and trellis |
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| Peas starting from seed at the new place |
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| Lettuce so, so good. |
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| New batch of arugula, more to come |
The elephant garlic below started growing these beautiful edible flowers, which we snipped off and ate like garlic in our stir fry. Once you remove the flower stem, the garlic starts putting all its energy into bulb production, rather than flower production. I could have let one go to seed, but I only have 3 and wanted to eat them all. Also, garlic is a biannual seed, meaning that once you let your plants go to seed and you plant those seeds, the first year, you only get a clove, the second year, you plant that clove to get a bulb. Its a 2 year process. I think I'll just buy more bulbs next year, and lots of them, as garlic is my favorite thing in my garden, and something I use quite often.
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| Elephant garlic |
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| Laura's Onions |
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| This side is sweet cluster tomatoes |
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| 3 Brandywine tomatoes on left, 2 sweet clusters on right |
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| Housewarming heirloom gifts, forget the type |
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| Potted heirloom, same variety as above |
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| Giant pumpkin variety, started from seed 2 weeks ago |
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| 3 kinds of cucumbers and summer squash |
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| 2 watermelon vines |
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| Zucchini taking over |
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| Lots of zucchini fruits emerging from the stem |
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| Beautiful sun flower that has grown 3 feet in a month. |
