I believe i was eating grapes from our front garden on September 20th last year. This is the garden that Fire-Man and I smashed out of some concrete that was there before. Imagine somebody thinking it would be a good idea to pour concrete in a perfectly suitable, if not optimal gardening space that I would one day occupy. It's not the first time i smashed concrete out of a fine garden spot, and given the amount of concrete in this world i doubt it to be the last.
Anyhoo... i was eating grapes today, a full month before last year. They are very tasty grapes by the way, but they are a month early... this is what a steady summer of "blast furnace" weather will do to the plants... provided they are watered properly. I believe i noted earlier in another post about how my beets that overwintered were suffering the signs of drought in April. Imagine drought in April in the pacific Northwest... just a minor fee we pay to keep our awesome economy rolling along. I read a story about somebody harvesting bananas in Vancouver B.C, don't get me wrong, I'm a big fan of fresh bananas but this has got to be a bit weird. Yes it is weird but remember, weird is the new cool so in effect we are collectively killing it, until of course the glaciers all melt and there is no water, but I'm sure that is they type of thing that "nobody could have ever imagined", except of course the lunatics that have been screaming about it trying to threaten our economy that is doing so well for all citizens.
Now Robertson's Alminac is more of a undocumented recollection of things i have observed than a detailed quantitative study, but I'm smart you see... why waste time with detailed quantitative studies when they are dismissed as "alarmist" and countered successfully with tested "talking points".
I think i was part of the Jim Bailie Bird-a-thon in 1982. I believe i saw 143 species of birds in one day during the spring migration at Point Pelee National Park. The years following there were less and less birds until the point where it became depressing and i stopped going. Apparently the culprit at that time was the rapid destruction of the Amazon Rain forest where our songbirds wintered and the loss of habitat was responsible for the decline in bird species. Insane to think that that was over 30 years ago and we still are arguing about the idea of human activity affecting the planet that we need completely to survive on.
But hey do i got Tomatoes... I got Tomatoes... they are fantastic tomatoes. I'm thinking including the cherry type tomatoes i probably have about 500 ripe at this point in time. Last year i was canning like a maniac late into the night heating the house up with the boiling pot raging... i needed to know it could be done and how to do it. This year i am spreading goodwill among the neighbours, and saving myself the workload of canning something i can buy for a buck a can. Mind you i make a pretty killer tomato soup and that can be frozen and saved for a cold November dinner.
I planted a melon in July to take over the pea trellis before i left on vacation for a few weeks... it was a long shot but after holding off putting tomatoes in the ground thinking there might be a cold spell i thought why not... the thing is now a monster thanks to Josh's dutiful watering with many fruit almost ready. My key problem here is that this is at the community garden and i am noticing signs of powdery mildew on many of the neglected "cucurbitia" plants in the garden. This will spread like wild fire and might strike me down before the harvest is complete. In a moment of inspired genius i almost pulled all of the powdery mildew plants out of the garden, but then remembering the concept of "community" i got cold feet. Somebody might get offended by me robbing them of their diseased plant that might produce some food that they will let rot in the ground... don't want to step on any toes.
Likewise a month ago i pulled out all of my cabbage related plants due to severe whitefly infestation... and i fired in some beans. The beans are now stomping balls in the garden space. It's amazing how many beans a single plant can produce and the lesson i see is to give each bean plant more space. I believe i have said it before and in this extreme year it is even more apparent that "Portland is a bean and Tomato town".
I think I'll stop growing hops now that i have my neighbours growing them for me... it's the zucchini argument. Why grow something that somebody else will grow, get too many and try to give you?... there is no lack of free zucchini or hops in my world... another piece of life advice, always live in the world that suits you.
So we are a month ahead and there still might be plenty of growing season ahead of us... are your plants ready? Now is the time you need to start culling the disease... let your horses run into the latter part of the season. If a plant is doing well let it roll, keep your tomatoes off the ground, prune back the excess and keep the plant healthy... you might get another month of solid production.
Onions... i have about 9 bags of onions from my bumper crop earlier this year, some i let got to seed for the bees. Now it looks like onion seed will be scattered all around the garden. This shall be a neat experiment seeing that i bought onion starts this year.... will onions come up naturally next year? Time is the hunter and it will show the truth. For the record all of my beans are saved seeds, i just saved some pods from last year and planted. It's the weird thing about gardening, people take master gardening courses and then head to the nursery to buy plants... all plants can be propagated by plants themselves, but yet we need plant stores.
It's not to weird, it's the new normal.
Anyhoo... i was eating grapes today, a full month before last year. They are very tasty grapes by the way, but they are a month early... this is what a steady summer of "blast furnace" weather will do to the plants... provided they are watered properly. I believe i noted earlier in another post about how my beets that overwintered were suffering the signs of drought in April. Imagine drought in April in the pacific Northwest... just a minor fee we pay to keep our awesome economy rolling along. I read a story about somebody harvesting bananas in Vancouver B.C, don't get me wrong, I'm a big fan of fresh bananas but this has got to be a bit weird. Yes it is weird but remember, weird is the new cool so in effect we are collectively killing it, until of course the glaciers all melt and there is no water, but I'm sure that is they type of thing that "nobody could have ever imagined", except of course the lunatics that have been screaming about it trying to threaten our economy that is doing so well for all citizens.
Now Robertson's Alminac is more of a undocumented recollection of things i have observed than a detailed quantitative study, but I'm smart you see... why waste time with detailed quantitative studies when they are dismissed as "alarmist" and countered successfully with tested "talking points".
I think i was part of the Jim Bailie Bird-a-thon in 1982. I believe i saw 143 species of birds in one day during the spring migration at Point Pelee National Park. The years following there were less and less birds until the point where it became depressing and i stopped going. Apparently the culprit at that time was the rapid destruction of the Amazon Rain forest where our songbirds wintered and the loss of habitat was responsible for the decline in bird species. Insane to think that that was over 30 years ago and we still are arguing about the idea of human activity affecting the planet that we need completely to survive on.
But hey do i got Tomatoes... I got Tomatoes... they are fantastic tomatoes. I'm thinking including the cherry type tomatoes i probably have about 500 ripe at this point in time. Last year i was canning like a maniac late into the night heating the house up with the boiling pot raging... i needed to know it could be done and how to do it. This year i am spreading goodwill among the neighbours, and saving myself the workload of canning something i can buy for a buck a can. Mind you i make a pretty killer tomato soup and that can be frozen and saved for a cold November dinner.
I planted a melon in July to take over the pea trellis before i left on vacation for a few weeks... it was a long shot but after holding off putting tomatoes in the ground thinking there might be a cold spell i thought why not... the thing is now a monster thanks to Josh's dutiful watering with many fruit almost ready. My key problem here is that this is at the community garden and i am noticing signs of powdery mildew on many of the neglected "cucurbitia" plants in the garden. This will spread like wild fire and might strike me down before the harvest is complete. In a moment of inspired genius i almost pulled all of the powdery mildew plants out of the garden, but then remembering the concept of "community" i got cold feet. Somebody might get offended by me robbing them of their diseased plant that might produce some food that they will let rot in the ground... don't want to step on any toes.
Likewise a month ago i pulled out all of my cabbage related plants due to severe whitefly infestation... and i fired in some beans. The beans are now stomping balls in the garden space. It's amazing how many beans a single plant can produce and the lesson i see is to give each bean plant more space. I believe i have said it before and in this extreme year it is even more apparent that "Portland is a bean and Tomato town".
I think I'll stop growing hops now that i have my neighbours growing them for me... it's the zucchini argument. Why grow something that somebody else will grow, get too many and try to give you?... there is no lack of free zucchini or hops in my world... another piece of life advice, always live in the world that suits you.
So we are a month ahead and there still might be plenty of growing season ahead of us... are your plants ready? Now is the time you need to start culling the disease... let your horses run into the latter part of the season. If a plant is doing well let it roll, keep your tomatoes off the ground, prune back the excess and keep the plant healthy... you might get another month of solid production.
Onions... i have about 9 bags of onions from my bumper crop earlier this year, some i let got to seed for the bees. Now it looks like onion seed will be scattered all around the garden. This shall be a neat experiment seeing that i bought onion starts this year.... will onions come up naturally next year? Time is the hunter and it will show the truth. For the record all of my beans are saved seeds, i just saved some pods from last year and planted. It's the weird thing about gardening, people take master gardening courses and then head to the nursery to buy plants... all plants can be propagated by plants themselves, but yet we need plant stores.
It's not to weird, it's the new normal.
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