Wednesday, June 4, 2008

Honey, I Shrunk the Carrots





These teeny-weeny carrots were planted more than a month ago. Maybe, just maybe, this is normal growth, but I suspect our clay soil is stunting them a bit! Those are potato plants towering over them. We replaced the unbelieveably compacted clay soil in this location with "garden grade"...whatever that is. Our neighbors called us "cheaters" although their corn only grew to 2 feet last year!





I'm not heartbroken over the carrots as they have these itsy, bitsy leeks and some peewee green onions to keep them company. Does anyone have a magnifying glass?


I've been reading up on improving clay soil. One recommendation is to mix in 4 inches of organic matter each year and another recommends adding sand with frequent cultivation. Follow these measures and they say you will see improvement in 3 to 4 years. What??? Gasp, choke, spit...I'm NOT that patient! I'm gonna need to stick to cheating...clearly I'll still need to augment the soil as even the cheating soil contains some clay, but I'm ok with that.



The tomatoes seem to be doing fine. I've wrestled them into some cages and am hoping to keep 'em tame.



The corn looks swell and will certainly be "knee high by the 4th of July".





These green bean plants also look great! We're still eating lettuce and spinach...yummo! Next may be some tomatoes!

1 comment:

Nancy said...

Let me know when your farmer's market stand is open. I'll be first in line!