2023 Backyard Mustard Greens

This last winter I pretty impressed with how tall and lush the mustard greens in my garden grew. Especially considering that my garden has been suffering from the nearby trees and local fungi extracting the nutrients from the soil. Given how much it has been struggling in the summer, it was great to see it do so well over the winter.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

One nice thing about growing in your own backyard is that you can see when the flowers are blooming and cut them down long before their seedheads mature. Just by looking out my back window I could see how the plants were coming along and take care of them while they were still manageable.

Cover Crops in the Grape Harvest Bins

Every year I change what I am growing in my winter gardens. The majority of the time it is a cover crop. This last winter, I chose to grow out Mustard Greens. Mustard Greens are usually very good at cleaning the soil, though they don’t provide a lot of organic matter. At both of the gardens where I planted them, they grew a bit wispy. However, at the old chicken plot, they were a little more vigorous. Once I had taken the time to cut the plants down, I covered them with a high quality soil mix.

 

 

 

 

 

For the second garden, which had received a lot of city compost with excessive pathogenic bacteria, the results were nowhere near as good. The plants dithered and only grew a little. We tried planting buckwheat, but to no avail. So in the end, I planted some fava beans in some high quality compost. Those seemed to do very well and helped better prepare my garden for the summer crop

 

 

 

2023 Cucumber Seed Harvest

Here are a few pictures from throughout the season of my cucumber harvest in 2023. I hope you enjoy!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tar Kakdi in the Greenhouse

Around the same time that I started growing my last outdoor Tar Kakdi, I started growing a few Tar Kakdi in the greenhouse. The primary reason why I chose to do this was to save seed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

However, in growing this variety in the greenhouse I came to really love how thin and beautiful the Tar Kakdi is. Growing a vegetable variety like this reminds me so much of why I garden. I get so much of the love of the culture for its gardens and fields when growing each indigenous cucumber or melon variety. I believe that with this particular population, the grower selected the variety for both the beauty of the flowers and also the wonderful texture of the fruit. In all the other populations I encountered, I was never experienced the same texture or stretched appearance to the fruit. This particular Tar Kakdi seemed much less like an Armenian cucumber and much more of its own cultivar.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Grape Harvest Bin Tar Kakdi

After the issues I had with side dressing my wonderful crop with diseased compost, I decided to try growing some more in a grape harvest bin located at a friend’s house. The plants grew quickly and well. Unfortunately, starting plants out in Mid-August isn’t typically the best idea when trying to grow any kind of muskmelon in Fairfield, California. Particularly because of issues related to Powdery Mildew.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I had a whole bunch of fun watching these grow. They start out so thin – nearly as thin as a pencil. But as they grow out, they lengthen dramatically. Some days, I almost felt like I could see them grow longer.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My family and I definitely enjoyed the opportunity to take photos with the Tar Kakdi. Additionally, one of the Tar Kakdi seemed to enjoy the car ride back to my house. The short amount of time along with my previous failure made for a bittersweet end to the season. With all this being said, I would definitely grow the Tar Kakdi again.