I harvested my first potatoes of the year, the very early variety “Bellarosa”.

Since I was growing these on top of the lawn under old compost mixed with some soil, moss, and tree leaves, I did not have to dig. I merely carefully raked the muck aside and picked the tubers off the ground. They did look quite nice, although they were not all nice. But that is normal.

Each of these crates contains 4 kg, except the far left one, which contains 2 kg of the smallest tubers. There were also approximately 8 kg of tubers that had various degrees of damage from mice, slugs, insects, or the rake. Those will need to be processed, i.e., eaten, fairly quickly.

I put aside 100 pieces of 40-60 g seed potatoes for next year because I do want to grow this variety again for the following reasons.

1. Overall, I harvested about 38 kg of potatoes from 5 kg of seed. This is not fantastic, but it is good, especially for a very early variety with very short vegetation.
2. There was no blight, and the pest damage is relatively minimal.
3. I am especially pleased with the size of the tubers and the ratio of big/small/tiny – I got 20 kg of big, 4 kg of small and just 2 kg of tiny tubers in shape good enough for storage, and that is good.
4. Since I grew them in the Ruth Stout method, it was relatively little work for quite reasonable gain.
5. Despite not being planted deep, the plants fared reasonably well in the heatwave.
6. Despite the heatwave, most of the tubers are quite nice-looking and not warty. Which is a cosmetic issue, but even so. They are also mostly round and not funny-shaped, which is a plus for peeling.

So although I am not super impressed, I am quite content with how this specific variety turned out. We will now cook a few meals with them and try to dehydrate them to see what uses they are best suited for.

 

I extracted and weighed the oats. Let’s talk about it.

The sheaves did dry into a very nice golden colour, although possibly still not quite enough. Maybe the threshing would be a bit easier and less laborious if I let them stay a few more days. But I wanted to be done with this so I can concentrate on other things. Also, the sparrows apparently thought I harvested the oats for them.

It did take a few hit-and-miss experiments to get a process that works for a small batch.

First I put one sheaf heads-first into a thick plastic bag, and I chucked nuns at it for a bit. That softened the straw and loosened most of the grains, although unfortunately not all of them. I think to loosen all of them, the sheaves would need to stand outdoors for much longer, and possibly it would help a bit if they got rained on and dried again. I do not know for sure; there is not much knowledge about this floating around anymore – it was lost to combine harvesters. My mother only knew how to make the sheaves; she was doing it as a child.

After the straw was a bit beat up and softened, I stripped the panicles into the sack using a thick leather glove, and I poured it all into a bucket. To thresh it thoroughly, I built an improvised drill-powered thresher. First I used only the wooden spokes. It worked, but not particularly well. Then I added bits of chain on the ends of all spokes, and that improved the performance quite significantly. When I have time in the workshop, I will probably build a better and more permanent structure from metal, because I want to grow more grains next year.

If we had a bit of wind, separating the grains from the chaff would be easy. But we have almost dead calm, so I had to use an electric fan that I fortuitously was able to purchase last month. It did not work as well as natural wind would because of the limited cross-section of the airflow, but it did work. Unfortunately, the grains still need to be a bit sorted and cleaned manually, which is difficult without Cinderella, on whom such a task could be shifted.

So, what did I get? Approximately 3600 g of clean grain, circa 170 g/m². That is about half of what I was hoping for, and about 70% of what I would still consider a good-ish harvest. According to all the info I could find, 300 g per m² should not be impossible; indeed, most sources mention yields even 500g/m² or more.

I can only speculate about the reasons for such a poor yield:

1. Poor soil. It was visible in the growth that about half of the patch had significantly poorer soil. The plants there were good 10 cm smaller, and the panicles had visibly fewer blossoms. I did fertilize the patch, but evidently not quite enough for it to really matter. This is a real-life demonstration of why most fields around here were transformed into pastures.
2. Heatwave. The heatwave did have a negative effect. It was at exactly the wrong time, and as a result, the plants did not develop some flowers into grains. I did water the patch, but I waited a bit too long with it.

I still consider it a success in the sense that I learned something worth knowing. And I think it is worth pursuing growing naked oats (and other grains) next year on another, bigger patch of land. I will till in a lot of organic fertilizer and compost into that patch in the fall, so it decomposes and dissolves into the soil over winter, and I will do the same for the patches where I wish to grow various kinds of wheat next year. We shall see what comes of that.

As far as work goes, it is much, much cheaper to buy the oats, even organic ones, than to grow them on a small scale. I would estimate I needed about 4 hours in the spring and about 8 hours for the harvest. But it was mostly very light work, except the tilling in the spring, and the second time it will be a lot shorter, because I will know what I am doing. And I will not be tilling tough turf grass the second time, too – that also needs to be taken into consideration.

If I double the yield and halve the work time, it would be almost profitable. And I think it is doable, only it will take a ‘hole ‘nother year to find out.

Three days of devastatingly hot weather were still not enough to dry the oats completely. I threshed two sheaves and got about 500 g out of them. Which is bad; it means I might expect as little as just 3 kg from the whole patch. But I did not thresh the second sheaf completely, because the grains still did not want to separate from the chaff, so I put it aside for now, and I am letting it dry a bit further. The weather forecast so far does not include any major rain; at best, we could get a very light shower.

But there is some progress on the loofah front that I’d like to mention.

I tried to grow two varieties of garlic and three varieties of onions in my new raised beds. The raised beds that I did my best to fill with uninfected soil. All crops failed, though for different reasons.

The seed-propagated shallot failed so completely that I do not even have a picture of the failed harvest, because literally zero plants grew to a size worth talking about.

The other two varieties did fare better in the sense that I did harvest something worth eating, but the bulbs are really small.

The main reasons why the onions failed were two:

1. The seed snails did not work out very well, as I wrote in the spring when planting them out. The roots attached to the landscaping fabric and when I was planting them out, they got damaged, and the plants had to grow new ones.
2. The spring was very cold, and the plants did not grow at all for a very long time. I gave some surplus seedlings to my neighbor who planted them in their greenhouse, and she told me they grew OK there. So it seems that to get reliable-ish onions, I will probably need to devise some portable polytunnel shelter for the raised beds.

At least the onions did not get any fungal disease this year, so in that sense, it was a success. I bought permaculture seeds of old variants to try out next year, and if those fail too, I won’t grow onions anymore.

The carrots that shared the same bed with the onions are still growing, but they will not be as good as those I got last year. For reasons unknown to me, the seeds had a difficult time this year taking off, and about one-quarter did not emerge from the ground, despite being pre-germinated just like last year.

And the garlic…

I have 8 heads of garlic Janko, out of 10 cloves that I saved and planted from last year. And I do not know how many heads of the variety Dukát I got. In the picture it looks like an OK harvest. However…

Half the plants were infected. I put them in the hottest and sunniest place in the garden to dry out (a gravel path), and I will burn them afterwards. I think it is white rot, Botrytis porri. I will have to try a different fungicide next year, or I will have to forgo garlic completely, since it is evident that this fucking plague is now everywhere in my garden. I will have to look at this issue a bit more thoroughly, because it does not make sense to spend more on fungicides than I would on the garlic itself.

Hokkaido, zucchini, marrow, and pattypans do not look promising, although I should get some, at least of the last sort. The butternut squashes, on the other hand, have grown like mad, and they were completely unaffected by the slugs. And today…

… I got the first three female flowers. I hope my attempts at manual pollination worked, because unfortunately, there weren’t very many male flowers open at the same time, and some were already closing.

However, this is really promising. I got the first female flower full seven weeks earlier than last year, so even if we get the first frost at the average time (end of September), I could look at a substantial amount of fully ripe fruit. I do not want to get my hopes up; that’s usually a surefire recipe for disappointment, but there are plenty more buds in the making and the vines are still growing in length by about 5-10 cm a day, with some reaching the very top of the trellises already.

I only wish the loofahs were flowering too. They are not; the vines still only grow in length, even though they have reached the roof of the greenhouse already.

Let’s talk legumes, baby!

Well, maybe I got my wires crossed a bit there, but legumes are important in the garden, and I have a lot of them around, so I think they do deserve some attention.

Nothing to see here, because this is a freshly tilled patch where green peas were. I harvested about 2 kg of peas from 250 g of seed, which is not very impressive tbh. If I were growing peas to save money, it would not be very efficient. But I am mostly growing peas to improve the soil, which is why I immediately sowed this patch with peas again, this time with yellow peas. Those won’t be harvested at all; they will be tilled in green as a fertilizer sometime in August/September, after which this patch will be sown with durum wheat to test if I can grow it here.

Yellow peas started to swell up, so I do hope to get my own seed for the future to compensate for the very disappointing germination rate of bought seed. However, this probably won’t be impressive either, because many pods are attacked by pea weevil Bruchus pisorum. This pest is a problem in my garden, and there is not really a good solution.

Leftover green pea seeds from last year had a nearly 100% germination rate, and it looks like I might get a 1000% dividend. I am letting the whole patch fully ripen to get my own seeds. This variety grows extremely fast, so it is eminently suitable as a green fertilizer both in the spring before other crops, as well as in the fall after the main season. And the green peas are very tasty too. But the seeds are fairly expensive, thus the effort to grow my own.

White runner beans are starting to bloom. But surprisingly, some plants have red blossoms, so there was some cross-pollination with the red runner beans. Which is annoying; I wanted to get a pure white strain, and I am getting red blossoms from white beans. The hybrids will be perfectly edible, but…

Various bush beans are starting to look less pathetic, and first flower buds are showing up too. I do hope to get my own seeds for the next season; buying bean seeds over the last few years has been very frustrating and disappointing.

Alfalfa is now knee-high and flowering. I won’t mow it; I will let it grow until the end of August, then I will mow it and till it in. A lot of weeds sprouted in the alfalfa patch, whose seeds were suppressed in the lawn. That will be a bit of a problem the next year, when I want to grow spelt here.

And now let’s switch to native legumes that are important in my garden.

I did mention already that I wish to gather seeds of the bush vetch Vicia sepum to propagate it more around my garden for the future. But that is not the only native legume for which I have plans.

White clover Trifolium repens grows anywhere on the walk paths, and I intend to encourage it to do so by not mowing it too short. It is a pesky weed in a vegetable patch, but a valuable asset elsewhere due to its ability to resist being trodden on and to alleviate soil compaction.

Bird vetch Vicia cracca grows in the meadows outside my garden, and I found a plant in an area where it was not mown when making hay. I will harvest its seeds, and I hope to propagate it in my garden too. Fast-growing, local nitrogen fixer, excellent for composting. And when it sprouts as a weed in a vegetable patch, it does not compete much with anything and is easy to manage, remove, or simply leave to be.

Several patches of red clover Trifolium pratense appeared in my front yard. I have mown the lawn around them so the heads ripen. I want to harvest the seeds too. It is an excellent nitrogen fixer; in my area it grows better than alfalfa, and bumblebees love it.

And the last legume whose seeds I wish to propagate around my garden is bird’s foot trefoil, Lotus corniculatus. It is not as fast-growing and big as others, but it is pretty, pollinators of all kinds love it, and it is reasonably drought-resistant. Thus, another good local alternative to alfalfa.

The main downside to all these native plants is the same one that alfalfa has – the seeds are teeny tiny and fairly difficult to harvest. We shall see whether I succeed or not.

For many of these, to my surprise, it is also possible to buy seeds – they are sold by a shop selling beekeepers’ equipment and accessories. Although I would prefer to get seeds from local plants. These are uncultivated wildflowers, and thus they should be pretty genetically diverse across CZ, and indeed the whole of Europe. With seeds from local plants, I have a guarantee that they are genetically adapted to the local environment. Seeds from plants that were, most probably, grown in a warmer climate and better soil at lower elevations might not do as well here.

I am still really seriously considering buying a packet of seeds of each in the spring, mix them up, till the poorest soil in my garden (my front yard), and sow the mix there to see if something comes of it. The seeds are not that expensive, and it might be worth it even if they have a poor germination rate.

 

 

Today should end the worst heatwave in recorded history in CZ. It was horrendous because my house does not have AC. Normally, I would not need it either; the thermal mass of well-insulated thick brick walls generally ensures a pleasant indoor climate even when it is hot for a few days outdoors. Not when there is persistent heat without even a slight breeze for two weeks, though. These last three days, the heat got so bad that I was completely unable to do anything, literally except lie in bed with a wet towel directly on my skin to cool me off. Luckily, my parents live on the first floor, and temperatures in their bedroom did not exceed 26°C, which is OK for them. I, on the other hand, had to endure 29°C from afternoon til almost midnight.

Before the heat got this bad, I managed to transplant my beans. So let’s talk about them a bit.

Beans do not make a strong taproot; they make a short and stubby one that very quickly starts to split into thin and fragile roots that do not like to be disturbed. I never had problems replanting them, though, because I always take care to not disturb the rootball during replanting. And this is one area where my clingy clay soil actually helps, because when I let the soil dry a bit before replanting, the whole rootball hardens somewhat and keeps its shape well. I also generally do not let the plants grow too long – I try to plant them outdoors just before they develop their third or fourth leaf.

I transplanted some pole beans near the hedge between my and my neighbor’s garden (with my neighbor’s consent), and for the rest I put some poles near my second walnut tree. These are beans “Konstantin” which have pods without the paper layer, so even if they do not manage to ripen fully, I should get some edibles out of them.

I was worried that the heatwave might harm the freshly transplanted beans, but almost all of them survived for several days, and they already start climbing. Only one pair died the very next day, and that was entirely my fault – when transplanting them, I dropped the rootball, and it shattered. That disturbed the roots too much, and in this weather, the plants had no chance. And one pair was eaten by something, probably voles.

Bush beans from the new supplier did not have as good a germination rate as my own pole bean seeds, but they fared much better than those that I tried before. So I planted them around the Painted Mountain Corn patch as planned. They are still alive four days later, so the transplanting probably succeeded too.

My garden copes with the weather relatively well so far, although I had to pour over two thousand litres of water into it to keep it alive. I even had to water the oats so they do not start dropping flowers. I hope we get enough rain to replenish my reserves.

Lufas love the weather. I have my first fruit growing. This plant started flowering much earlier than the others, and it started with female flowers. By sheer luck, the third female flower started closing at just the same time that the first male flower opened, so I tried to pollinate it. And surprisingly, it worked. The other three plants did not start flowering at all yet, but I do hope they will.

There are indeed new flowers in the making, although this one does not look female from this angle at all. Hur, hur, hur… Sorry.

Figs and grapes, of course, love the hot weather too. I might get a decent harvest this year.

Tomatoes are a mixed bag. I did something wrong this year (I do not know what), and the seedlings were generally small and sickly when I was planting them. In the greenhouse, they recovered and are already starting to flower. Outdoors, however, most of them are still way too small, and there is a huge question mark over them.

Of all the pumpkin species and variants that I planted, only butternuts look really promising. None of them were ravaged by slugs, and now they are growing fast. They are not flowering yet, but they started forming plenty of flower buds. Last year, I got the first female flower in the last week of August, and I still got a usable harvest. So this year, it could be really good. And btw., the only butternut squash that fully ripened last year remained perfectly fresh for five months; they store really well. I am hopeful they will compensate for the total failure that my Hokkaido and Zucchini are very likely to be.

 

Now that we have warm weather, the garden is growing fast. There is a visible difference from one day to the next.

The oats are just about to bloom, and it does look promising, even though about a third of the patch has visibly lower growth due to poor soil quality.

Yesterday, I was worried about whether the Painted Mountain corn would germinate, and today the first plants started to poke out of the soil. If we have a warm September and a frost-free autumn until at least the first week in October, they might even fully ripen.

There are a few soybean plants here and there. I will wait about a month until they are all visible well, and then I will sow green peas in areas where they failed. If the weather stays warm long enough, I might get some of my own seed for next year, although most definitely not enough to actually eat. Next year, I will not grow soy in rows, but in clusters of 5 plants. That way I can try to start enough plants in cups early and plant them outdoors once the frost risk is over, as I do with other beans. It won’t allow for large-scale growing like direct sowing in rows does, but it should still allow me to cover a reasonably large patch.

The green peas that I intend to let fully ripen to get my own seeds for next year are very lush and vigorous. I hope this continues and I get a few kg of viable seeds, because this variety grows very fast and is thus suitable not only for food, but also for improving, protecting, and fertilizing the soil as a cover crop.

The green peas intended for actual harvest for food look nowhere near as lush, but I should still get my work’s worth out of the patch.

The yellow peas look vigorous and healthy too, albeit the growth has bald spots due to a poor germination rate (only about 50%). These were actually sold as a green fertilizer, but they grow slower than the green peas, and they apparently need higher temperatures to start growing. However, I would like to get my own seeds for the future, because these peas are more suitable for producing dry seed for long-term storage.

Alfalfa is growing, but it is not what is in the picture. This is bush vetch Vicia sepum.

The seeds are very small, but the pods are big enough for manual harvest and shelling. So this year, I decided to mow my lawn around these and to collect as many seeds as possible. If I succed to get reasonable amount, then next year I will till a patch dedicated to these to get even more seed. The plant is not edible, but it is an excellent nitrogen fixer. And unlike alfalfa or peas, it is a local plant – it is guaranteed to thrive here. I only need to help it spread more than it is capable of doing on its own.

Da potatoes are a’ growin’. Some of it is good, some of it is bad, some of it is even ugly. But they all started to flower, and the flowers aren’t ugly. It also means that about a month from now I will probably be able to harvest the early varieties.

The indeterminate variety “Agrie” has white flowers, and it is the one that contains most of the “ugly” plants, unfortunately. Some plants have dark green, curled-up leaves, which might be a sign of too much nitrogen. In all probability, I did not spread the fertilizer wide enough in some areas. About 70% of the plants look normal, so it is not a total catastrophe. We will see what comes of it.

The second indeterminate variety “Dali” has white flowers too, and all plants look healthy.

Both indeterminate varieties could do with some more hilling up, but I do not have the material to do so. Which is unfortunate; a few plants were damaged by strong winds. They are just too tall and frail due to how abnormally quickly they grew. I am not experienced in applying fertilizer, and it seems my soil was more fertile than I thought.

The very early variety “Bellarosa” has light pink flowers and light green leaves. These are grown in the Ruth Stout method, which is not conducive to over-fertilizing, but it is very good for slugs. Whenever it rains, I collect quite a few of them in this growth. The slug infestation is nowhere near as severe as it was two years ago, but I still suspect the tubers will be damaged by them as well.

The early variety “Camel” has flowers of an even darker shade of pink. Even the green parts have a reddish tint to them, and the growth is thus distinctly darker than the adjacent “Bellarosa”. They are also smaller and sturdier than all the other varieties. These were damaged by voles or mice, so there are a few bald patches in the growth and a few plants are stunted. However, the rest took off well, and they look healthy.

Overall, potatoes do look promising, albeit not perfect. I will not be satisfied if I get anything less than 300 kg, but if I get more than 200 kg, it will be worth the effort.

This weekend, they all get a second dose of fungicide to prevent blight. These varieties should all be resistant, but it is better to be safe than sorry. I was successful in keeping my potatoes blight-free for years, and I do not want to break the streak.