GardenHacker:
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Weekend Update for 9/29/07

It's the end of September. I'm still gathering tomatoes from the garden, the JTR's and the containers. the "rogue" squash may find their way into my garden next year as well - one plant will be fine, thank you! they just keep producing: the one in the JTR, and the one in the compost heap. Of course, there may be another reason: both of these are in piles of - okay, one's manure/lime/wood chips, and the other is a good pile of compost, including all of the aforementioned materials, and more. The deep black soil is what I'm working toward for the rest of the beds, but haven't achieved as of yet.

A moveable compost pile would work eventually, though a 3' x 3' square per year would most likely be used up within three years and I'd have to start over again. "Amending" the soil on a grander scale is more of a solution, though a bit on the brute force side for eight 3' x 20' beds, even though I need to run the tiller at least once more before the winter (for the tiller's sake). I'm going toward the raised bed idea for a couple of reasons: we're on a small mountain in zone 5, creating a shorter season than those just five miles away from us (it will be raining in Williamsburg, and snowing in Goshen again this winter), and after seeing the effect of the Japanese Tomato Rings, I think I may be onto something. Stay tuned for new experiments next spring.

Next year's garden is well in the planning stage, the sides are up on several of the beds, my quadruped friends will soon be giving me an odd look as I haul away more "partially processed" materials.The killing mulch is beginning to be layed down (newspaper/cardboard + mulch hay + compost) on the beds that got overrun with weeds. Plans are for the carrots and beets to be covered with row covers and plastic to overwinter for sweet carrots ala "Elliott Coleman"(unless I eat them first).

Tally for 29-Sep., 2007:
19" JTR 14.97 lbs., Δ = 1.63
29" JTR 34.63 lbs., Δ = 6.69
Garden 16.45 lbs., Δ = 3.50
Containers 5.7 lbs, Δ = 1.32
Total = 71.74lbs