Fall crops
Somewhat belatedly, I got the last of the summer crops in and planted the last of my fall crops. My four basil plants, which never really flourished, got snipped, and the leaves are even now sitting in my dessicator on their way to being dried basil. In the past, we’ve had an annual pesto making party, but this year there wasn’t really enough basil to make pesto. I also pulled the last two fennel bulbs and now have two bags in the fridge – one for the bulbs and one for the foliage.
Just like the beds I planted earlier with fall mustard greens and sugar snaps, I went through where the fennel, basil and tomatoes were and dug the bed. In a slacker version of John Jeavons’ recommendation, I simply went along with a spade and loosened the top 20 cm or so of soil. Jeavons would have recommended pulling that dirt out, then using a broadfork to loosen the subsoil. I didn’t have time for that, so I didn’t go to that length. Since I still have very little topsoil, most of what I loosened up was huge chunks of clay. I added about a centimeter or two of compost, most of which came from my own compost bin, and mixed that into the top layers of soil as I broke up the giant clods of clay. Once I got that done, I inoculated an envelope of fava beans and planted them in the loosened bed. I’m still of two minds about the favas. Half of me wants to till them under in the early spring to add organic matter to the soil on top of the nitrogen they will be fixing all winter and the other half wants to have fresh favas in the spring. No need to make a decision at this point, though.
My peppers are producing like mad, and I still have blossoms. M. and I harvested three gorgeous Nardello peppers on Friday, one of which we ate on the way back to the house, another wound up in a breakfast omelet and the last wound up in a veggie quesadilla along with some fresh shiitakes from my CSA share. The Cuban peppers are putting out another flush right now, which should be ready in a week or so, and my red bell peppers are a few days from being picked. Identical plants that I gave to my back door neighbor have been producing like crazy for the past two weeks, so I’m taking that as a sign that my soil is a bit tapped out right now.