Our Summer Organic Garden in 2019 was tricky this year. This summer was a difficult one due to a delayed spring. There was not so much of a harvest as of yet and July was a relatively slow month at the Swiss Organic Garden. We are yet to learn a lot more tricks of gardening in this erratic climate.
Planning for Fall Garden
Since we got off with a bad start this Spring, first mistake was being away during the crucial weeks of spring. We started planting and then neglected our garden a little due to other urgent projects. We thought we should at least get a head start on our fall garden. Our Organic Garden in July was overgrown with weeds and grass. So it was time first to tackle this overgrowth and then plan for a productive fall garden.
First job was de-weeding all the overgrown patches. Then we started to trim the strawberry patch. If we want to have a second yield of Strawberries in autumn, we will have to trim the bushes so they will start flowering and fruiting for the next phase. Last year we didn’t do it so the yield was very low. One learns from experience.
Summer Organic Garden Video
If you want to skip the post and watch the video, click on the link below.
Harvest from our July Organic Garden
In my June Garden, I shared on how we planted a few varieties of potatoes. Well we havested the first potato patch. We could harvest this tasty variety called VITABELLA. The potatoes are a very light yellow with only a few eyes and are one of the best looking we have seen. They are oval in shape. We were a little surprised that they were not huge. In the meantime, I cooked them and we also grilled them. A tasty buttery variety that still holds its shape after cooking. Would definitely recommend this variety.
More Harvest from Our Summer Organic Garden
We decided to harvest all the carrots from our Greenhouse. We had planted the seeds too close and there was not enough space for them to grow bigger underneath. Moreover, carrots can also be grown on regular patches as the ground was certainly warmer than in April. So we harvested all of it and cleared valuable real estate in the green house for more of fall planting. The yield was good but the sizes of the carrots were on the smaller side.
Manual Pollination of Eggplants
Lack of bees are now a common problem in Europe. We are facing the same here at our garden. Especially in the greenhouse. Most of the other plants like the bell peppers and other creepers can self pollinate but not the eggplants. We saw a lot of flowers on them, but due to lack of pollination they fell off. The green house was certainly keeping the bees away due to overgrowth and the windows which shut automatically when the temperature drops.
So in the end we resorted to pollinating them manually. We took a cotton bud and went around each flower and mixed the pollen around. Now we are seeing some results because of it and the eggplants are finally surfacing, I will share it in a future post.
Hopefully more Squash and Tomato Harvest
End of July, and we finally we see some sun ripened tomatoes and a couple of butternut squash in our July Organic Garden. We are right now harvesting a lot of French beans, tomatoes, cucumbers and zucchini in addition to some lettuce. But the yield is not so much as last year. I just hope we can look forward to a lot more harvest in the month of August.
On this note I will end my blog post and will share the latest developments in a future post in August.
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