Back in the summer, our garden took off. Big strong plants everywhere! Lots of bright green foliage from my squash, zucchinis, peppers and cucumbers. Not to mention the HUGE tomato plants. :)
But this weird thing happened… that overgrown garden hardly produced a single thing. Maybe a few dozen small tomatoes over the season. The zucchini and squash each gave me one vegetable. (that’s right, one).
Also, two sweet potatoes and a couple of minis. Those were delicious :).
I made them up like this.
In the past, our soil has been super rich in nutrients because we had maintained a pretty great worm farm for composting. Worm farm ‘juice’ production stopped two years ago and I NEED to get that system back up again.
I posted a picture of Taylor and I working to add more nutrients into our hearty soil on Instagram and got some great feedback. There are two main reasons our garden may have failed: 1. the heat in California which causes the plant to produce more leaves that fruit, and 2. that there is too much nitrogen in the soil and not enough phosphorus.
Summary: the main suggestion came in that when planting again next spring, I should add in a good organic fertilizer that has more phosphorus than nitrogen in it. Also should try something called ‘mycorrhizae’.
Such excellent advice! Thanks @morganlmartinez ;).
I also received some excellent suggestions from a local farmer at a recent festival (he had a little gardening exhibit) and he suggested I start now by planting fava beans for a full season. Fava beans are unique in that they don’t ‘steal’ from the soil and he suggested we go crazy.
Taylor and I planted about 30 seeds in our little garden bed – four weeks later and the beans are taking root! …
