Another month has flown past me just like that. There has not been major changes in the garden since the last post. Just more production, more weeding and some more harvest.
I am currently able to harvest about 10kg of basil from the garden a week. I have 3 different varieties curly leaf, classic Italian and African Basil (also called clove basil). I had a lot of basil come up from the roughage from the seeding process least season that I just tossed in a bed. I then transplanted it throughout the garden as it is good for co-planting.
This is the African Basil. I had this one come up as volunteers in a lot of places as I let it go to seed last season. I need to find a good market for the basil as it seems to do well in my garden. Sadly where I am at there are not a lot of Italian restaurants around.
Dill has also been a great producer this season and something I have not had much luck with in the past.
The local sunflowers cam a little bit later than the big head ones that I got from abroad but they produce many heads and seem to get a bit taller.
I have now harvested the seeds from about 10 big head sunflowers that have already bloomed and died and dried. I have a lot of seed for next season now. I also just planted a couple hundred of these on about 1/6th of an acre below my primary garden it will be quite the sight to behold soon.
These rows are more basil companion planted with tomatoes that are starting to come, and peppers. You can see a brilliant pawpaw planted on the berm below the swale in the back ground. The row beyond the peppers and basil has some Okra and bambara beans.
I am loving this corner of the farm now it is 4 rows planted with millet, sorghum and 2 rows of corn. The sorghum is getting to be over 10 feet tall and the millet is around 7 to 8 feet. You can see here a neighborhood dog who always likes to come visit is exploring the long grass that I have since weeded out and used to mulch the area.
Tomatoes are starting to come into season and looking good. There is some scaring from some of the pest pressure though this season. I am hoping as they continue to come I will get some perfect tomatoes. I pull them off the plant when they are starting to show some color because in addition to bugs there are also rats and humans as potential pests.
Yellow Zucchini starting to do its thing.
I finally got a few marigolds to come up in my nursery bed. Sadly I did not want to risk transplanting them to where I need them for help with pests as I want to get fresh seeds from these few coming up to give it another try.
The egg plants have started producing nicely. I am not sure how these will end up because they dont seem to be the local completely white ones or the dark purple ones, perhaps they were a cross bred from the seeds that I gathered. This makes it hard for me to know when they are ready to be picked because I don't know what color they should be.
Last week I harvested a lot of peanuts.
I have been working the last week on catching up on the weeding and mulching as you can see here. I am happy to finally be getting a nice mulch later over a lot of the more sparsely planted areas.
Thanks for enjoying another update from the farm.