Happy Saturday to all! A big thanks to Natalie of Natalie the Explorer for hosting WeekendCoffeeShare this weekend.
I think we are getting all the rain we were supposed to have over the summer dumped this week. It rained half-day on Tuesday and intermittently yesterday. I had wanted to check on the garden but every time I stepped out, fat drops of rain would start falling on my head. I sure hope the garden is enjoying all this rain.
Speaking of the garden, I finally finished the garden project I’ve been working for the last week and a half. I don’t have the after pictures but will have it soon.
Along the back fence is a bed that’s never been planted prior to me moving in. The previous owner probably attempted but never succeeded. The soil in that bed is the worst. It’s native clay, which some people would say, “you can build a house out of that clay.”
Since I moved in, I’ve planted 3 fruit trees and many annuals and perennials. Even though I’ve replaced most of the soils when I planted these things, all the plants seemed to struggle in this soil. Then, sometime ago, I saw a Youtube video of someone having similar problem as me and I watched her spread about an inch or two of compost and good soil on top of the poor soil and let it sit for a winter. By spring, the soil became more workable than before.
That’s what I did and hopefully, it will work. I guess we’ll know in the spring.
Looking at my #weekendcoffeeshare post from this same time last year, I had harvested all my sweet potatoes despite the hot weather and, goodness, all those peppers. The weather this year has been cooler, with the average daytime temperatures only reaching around mid-70’s-Fahrenheit (low to mid-20’s Celsius).
My pepper plants have been struggling all summer with the bigger plant not getting enough water. I have started harvesting my sweet potatoes this week but so far, I’ve managed to harvest partially while letting the plants live on. It’s almost like stealing an egg from under the chicken. Let me tell you, the sweet potatoes that were grown in the ground were monsters…
The smaller ones came from the grow bag. I wonder if it’s because it was growing next to the tomatoes, and tomatoes are heavy feeders. I wonder if the tomatoes sucked the life out of the sweet potato plants, like a vampire. The next night, my mom cut the small sweet potatoes into chunks and added to the rice. It was delicious.
Yesterday, despite the rain, I went out to the garden and harvested these cucumber. It’s been about a week since my last cucumber harvest. Eight cucumbers in October, not a bad harvest at all. I probably over-planted on cucumbers this year, huh. Next year, I will probably eliminate a few varieties and just focus on grow the varieties I like.
Anyway, I appreciate you stopping by. I hope you will have a wonderful week ahead.
This is Another Story 
I believe that your garden bed is going to thrive come spring. Any mulch or natural material will help when it comes to fixing clay soil. Do you have access to leaves? If you do you could mix that in as well. Best of luck, looking forward to seeing the pictures of your project.
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The wood mulch I had before didn’t want to take in water. I had a pile set aside as an experiment but even after the torrential rain of the last few nights, only a thin layer beneath the mulch was soaked. I think I would like to try a living mulch like poppies or alyssum next year, if possible. Otherwise, I will either need to get a leaf mulcher or go with a finer mulch like straw or something.
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I’m pretty impressed. My cucumbers produced almost nothing this year. With a few exceptions, this year was the least productive I’ve ever seen my garden… or fruit trees. I think it was just too cool of a summer for the garden. The trees… maybe lost the blossoms in a late spring freeze? Modest pepper and weak tomato production. Some decent potatoes. Biggest surprise was an area that last year I’d left as second-year carrots as an experiment. The regrowing carrots were inedible, so I let them flower. This year’s carrots that resulted from the natural seeding were pretty good.
Almost a freeze last night; so that’ll pretty much wrap up this year.
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Thank you. Picked another 8 cucumbers this morning. I think maybe it’s the variety of cucumber you have. Some cucumber varieties don’t produce much. I grow mostly Japanese cucumbers and they produced quite well. I also grew the kind that didn’t require pollination, so that helped.
The only fruit trees that produced this year were the self-pollinated ones, the ones that don’t require bees. The fruit trees that required pollination didn’t produce anything. Perhaps it’s the same problem you’re having with your fruit trees. I had mediocre potato production this year but that may had been due to user error as I didn’t give them some decent soil and a good place.
It’s been pretty cold the last few nights. I don’t know whether you got rain or snow but I got over an inch of rain yesterday. Very rare thing to occur.
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