Garden Pictures, Mid-August 2021 | The Survival Gardener

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Though we’ve had a few weeks of dry weather, the gardens are still doing well – particularly the Grocery Row Gardens. Lately we’ve been getting a lot of okra and a lot of hot peppers.

First, this is just one of the okra beds:

okra and biomass - Survival Gardening

Behind it is a patch of black-eyed peas and Sudan/sorghum grass we are growing for compost.

And now for the peppers!

cayenne - Survival Gardening

jalapeno - Survival Gardening Habenero - Survival Gardening

These are being made into sauces, both by me and my eldest son, and by our friend Matthew who is brilliant with making home-fermented hot sauce. I planted lots of extra peppers this year just to feed his fermenting crocks. It’s selfish, too, because I know he’ll give me some of the finished product.

We’re getting over a gallon of peppers a week now, maybe more.

Pests have been a minor issue in the gardens, causing a little trouble here and there. Leaf-footed bugs, grasshoppers, fire ants and aphids are in effect. Some of these guys are sneaky and just leave evidence behind of their midnight snacking.

insect bite - Survival Gardening

Others are brazen and hang out in plain sight right in the middle of the day.

grashopped on leaf - Survival Gardening

But don’t worry, the good guys are on the job.

spider in garden - Survival Gardening

We have a lot of spiders, as well as toads, stick bugs, praying mantises and wasps. Don’t spray and life will come your way. It would be a travesty to spray these life-filled gardens. My children play in them every day, as well as help with the maintenance.

kids in grocery row garden - Survival Gardening Raking the row - Survival Gardening

Some more beans are coming up now and the Black Coco sprouts look good so far.

bean sprout coming up - Survival Gardening

The raspberries and blackberries are making another round of fruit.blackberries in summer - Survival Gardening

And my angle gourds are finally producing – and producing well!

angle gourd - Survival Gardening

We had some for breakfast today and the taste and texture are excellent. I’ve written about this unique crop in the past and am quite pleased to be able to grow it again. We were never able to get the seeds down in the Caribbean, but I missed it.

The winners in the garden over the last couple of weeks, however, were the pumpkins

Pumpkins on table again - Survival Gardening david the good pumpkins - Survival Gardening 2021 pumpkins - Survival Gardening

Many of those are the mixed-up Seminole pumpkin varieties we got from multiple sources. The deeper orange and the green ones are mostly from the Walmart pumpkin I brought home last fall. We cleaned the seeds and planted them and got a crazy mess of crossed types. The dark green pumpkin to the lower right, with the bright orange spot, is a spaghetti squash that volunteered in the compost pile. We ate that one the other night.

Though this isn’t the most productive season of the year for most vegetables, it is a good time for seed saving. Some of the crops of spring are being allowed to grow to full maturity so we have seeds for next year.

Like these snake beans:

drying beans - Survival Gardening yard long beans drying for seed - Survival Gardening

And this (unprintable) vegetable:

Zuchinni for seeds - Survival Gardening

The Grocery Row Gardens are performing quite well. A chunk of them are now in full cassava production mode.

grocery row garden mid day - Survival Gardening

They take a little work to maintain, but not much. The dirt paths are easy to weed with a wheelhoe.wheel hoe in grocery row garden - Survival Gardening

I love these Grocery Row Gardens. The new booklet goes live on August 25th.

Grocery Row Gardening ebook cover web - Survival Gardening

If you want to help get it ranked high up in the Amazon charts, please pre-order the ebook here. We’re at the top of the “Garden Design” section of Amazon right now, and a good launch will help the book rank high in the charts for months or years to come. The paperback version should be finalized this weekend and will be up for sale in week or two. Right now I’m concentrating on the kindle launch so we can get the algorithms to promote the book in the future.

Finally, we are truly blessed to be here and to have space to garden. I feel for those of you that don’t have land to use. Even though we’re renting, it feels good to plant trees and vegetables and have roots in the ground.

No matter what, though, we can’t trust just in ourselves – garden space or no space.

I read this passage in Jeremiah 17 this morning:

Cursed is the man who trusts in man
And makes flesh his strength,
Whose heart departs from the Lord.
For he shall be like a shrub in the desert,
And shall not see when good comes,
But shall inhabit the parched places in the wilderness,
In a salt land which is not inhabited.

Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord,
And whose hope is the Lord.
For he shall be like a tree planted by the waters,
Which spreads out its roots by the river,
And will not fear when heat comes;
But its leaf will be green,
And will not be anxious in the year of drought,
Nor will cease from yielding fruit.

Keep your eyes on things above, and garden if you can. If you can’t, I hope you’ve enjoyed a few pictures from our garden.

-DTG

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