Sunday, August 7, 2016

MBOFVG 2016: Summer Update

Regular fertilizer applications made all the difference in my backyard organic fruit and vegetable garden this summer, but you're in for a big surprise if you think you can only have a lush, productive garden with synthetic fertilizers and other costly inputs.

As the wind chimes on my back stoop tinkled in the gentle summer breeze, I reflected on one of the most prolific gardens I have ever tended, and I realized this could be the dawn of a new golden age of gardening for me. I don't want to leak any secrets, but I just can't hold it in anymore: it took a real fertility whiz to get my garden back on track--Amber Waters, who holds a PhD in agroecology with an emphasis in natural fertilization methods, actually deserves most of the credit.

And for my gardening counterparts in French-speaking parts of the world, oui oui, vous pouvez aussi avoir un beau jardin sans l'utilisation d' engrais synthétiques.

The lawn is mostly dead, but everything in the box is verdant.
This bed has a mix of basils, tomato, serrano and jalapeno chiles, zinnias, and white alyssum, plus several large volunteer squashes, a few volunteer fava bean plants, and a few volunteer vetch sprouts. Somewhere in all of that is some type of thyme and a Mexican mint marigold.
Sweet almonds harvested from a neighbor's tree.
This year there are seven volunteer sunflower plants along the west fence.

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