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!
Taylor has been my little garden buddy as of late.
We miss our homegrown veggies A LOT. I used to use them all of the time, supplementing most dinner meals with a zucchini, cucumber, handful of tomatoes or herbs or what have you with whatever else was being served. (here’s a history of cooking with our loot.)
Farm Fresh to You asked me how I was using a delivered CSA veggie box on a regular basis and that was an easy question to answer… we are using it now to supplement every bit of our missing garden! I’ve even added an extra box delivery to the schedule because we’re going through the good stuff that much quicker (added a small fruit box delivered monthly for lunch box use).
Farm Fresh to You delivers healthy fruits and vegetables from small local farms right to your door. It’s simple and so easy. We love the convenience and we love that food is organic and seasonally grown close by. I also love to add their fresh eggs and organic apple juice (which is to die for) to our box! Use this code to get $10 off of a box: MZRG2563
We have been dedicated CSA box supporters for almost five years.
So, here’s hoping that come spring our veggie garden soil will be replenished by implementing all of the wonderful suggestions we’ve received. We’ll continue to get a CSA box (our family is growing bigger, after all!) but I sure do miss walking out to the side of the house for extra this and that :).
This post was sponsored by Farm Fresh to You. It means a lot that you let me share about brands that I love and use, and especially those that support this little site.
So sorry to hear about your garden this year. I’ve always wondered more about your worm bins, too. Lets hope those fava beans work, too!
The best part is that there were two very special workers helping you tend the garden .. fantastic memories are made this way.