Changing Over

Over the past weekend we said goodbye to the tomatoes.  It was less of an emotional farewell than it was last fall - the tomatoes just weren't the same.  They were delicious, just not prolific.  We had a few rounds of bruschetta.  We have three measly jars of frozen sauce. Salsa a couple of times.  You know, just not the bounty that we had last year.  The tomatoes shared the bed this summer with four different varieties of cucumber and several types of bean that also never really sprung into action. Oh well, bring on the cool weather and the winter garden.  Brassicas here we come!

After removing all the plants, except for the spindly family of asparagus that live at one end of the bed, we added some home made amendments to the soil.  Very exciting.  This is really the first time we added a load of our own composts - worm and regular.  Though I think we could have used twice as much of both, we were kind of proud to see the efforts of tightening our waste management system go right into the garden in the form of dark, rich organic matter.  Pretty cool.  We also added some drip irrigation.

We are hoping that the new drip will do for our vegetables what it has done for the herb bed - super happy plants.  We covered the bed with a new coat of alfalfa and are looking forward to planting seed next weekend.  The upper bed, on the other hand, got only a small editing. The peppers, eggplants, and zucchini are still growing strong.  So, fingers crossed, we will have a smooth transition into the new season - some remaining summer/fall veg to use as the winter/spring things get on with it.