Sunday, March 1, 2009

Red and Green

Nope, this is not a Christmas message. It is about the colors of the lettuce currently being harvested from my little garden. Where we live, I am able to grow lettuce year round. I also have chives, arugula, and peppers growing now. An Anaheim pepper (slender, yellow oblong sweet peppers) and a sweet red pepper were both planted February 2008. They never did die so I just pinched them back and they are growing away. The Anaheim has had peppers continuously since last May. They are yellow when ripe, but if left on the plant will turn orange and then red - while remaining sweet and tasty. They make colorful additions to a salad. The red bell pepper had fruit through January and now has blossoms starting for the next crop.

Just a warning, if you prepare your soil, plant, add water and sunshine, you know what will happen. You will be pulling weeds very soon!

One more thought, someone ask about my composting method. I keep a small bucket with a lid in the kitchen and put fruit and vegetable peelings, leftovers, etc. in it (no meat or dairy and I don't put in egg shells. They seem to attract raccoons.) Every other day or so I take the bucket out to the garden, dig a little hole, pour the stuff in, cover it up and I am done. I have been doing this for a couple of years and it seems to work fine.

2 comments:

  1. That is very interesting, Gloria. So you never turn the soil or anything, it just breaks down and takes care of itself when you bury the kitchen trash?

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  2. Yes and so far it seems to work fine-- I've been doing this for a couple of years. Right now there is not room in my planter boxes to bury more without disturbing plants, so I have a trench about 6 feet long and 1 foot wide in another area and burying the garbage there - covering each bucket load with a load of dirt. Later I will plant that area - maybe zuchinni....

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