Come October I began my preparations for next year’s garden.  Gardening is a year round hobby, with only a lull during the November through February months. Below are a list of chores I performed at the end of the growing season.  By starting now I can avoid some of the pitfalls I faced during my first year of gardening.

 Harvest all the remaining crops.  The only plants still blooming were some tiny watermelons I knew hadn’t a chance to mature and my lima bean plant.  The lima beans just recently started to flower, so I’m going to work around them.  (Plenty of flowers, but no pods yet.  They should keep growing until the first frost) I yanked all plants, roots and all, and threw them onto the compost pile.  The strawberries I transplanted into barrels.  Maybe next year they will bear fruit.

Rake the soil flat.  I like to grow things in neat little rows.  Flattening it with a metal rake between seasons allows me to remove any large rocks pushed towards the surface and break up the soil where hidden roots may remain.

Lime the soil.  While my garden was already sprouting, I tested the PH of my soil after the fact using special PH Test Strips.  The soil PH tested at 5.5, which is very acidic. Water is a neutral 7 on the scale, with the best growing conditions being slightly acidic for most plants.  (6.5-7)  Some plants, like blueberries, prefer acid soil, but 5.5 is too low for most vegetables to thrive.  With any luck my application of lime will bring the PH up to 6 or higher by next season.

Spread compost over the entire garden.  All year I’ve been collecting leaves, grass clippings, and other garden waste in a big pile.  Now it’s obtained a deep black soil color.  I spread this compost over my recently limed soil.  As the leaves fall, I will run them over with the lawn mower and put them on top of the compost. 

Turn the soil over before the first snowfall.   Using a spade I will turn the soil about a foot deep to mix things up further.  This should give my garden plenty of organic matter come spring.  By removing rocks now, my garden should be almost ready to go.  I’ll turn the soil one more time come spring to aerate the soil.

Plan next year’s garden.  Never too early to think about what you want to grow for next year.  Already I am planning on strawberries, baby watermelons, a new variety of tomato, new variety of corn, and some berries.  Gone are the carrots.  I just don’t enjoy eating them that much.  The wife would like to see Chinese cabbage and chives.  Remember, you don’t want to grow the same crop on the same spot 2 years in a row.  Because of the partial shade my garden receives, I’ll be particularly looking at items with short growing seasons. Maybe I’ll even try to grow a turnip. Lot’s of planning to go!

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Obviously I’m dreaming again.  The chance of a pretty young female smiling at me is pretty slim, despite my Internet fame and fortune.  Back in May I had planted a row of Sugar Baby Watermelons and completely forgot about them.  They started out as these tiny little vines that I knew from the start would never get the sun and heat they required.  I ignored them until the beginning of August. 

There were these vines extending out of the garden sprawling all over the yard, up and over the garden fence .  At first I thought it was a weed until I saw this tiny green melon hanging from the vine.  No way a watermelon could safely grow in size suspended like that, so I had to cut the melon off the fence to get it  back on ground level.  Watermelons cling onto things by grabbing on and then growing a knot.  It’s pretty cool how strong they attach themselves to objects.

Despite my best efforts I managed to wound the skin of the hanging melon.  Rather than see it go bad, I picked it a bit prematurely.  I didn’t know how premature yet, but the melon pictured was almost the 8 inch diameter claimed on the seed pack.  It did make a nice “thunk” when I knocked on it.  There was only one way to find out:  Cut it open.

As you can see the inside was only slightly pink.  The picture on the seed package shows the inside a dark pink.  Still, the flesh was soft and sweet.  The taste and texture was more like a honeydew than a watermelon.  In my book this is still a win.  I was half expecting a slithering mound of worms to come crawling out or something.  I bet if I had waited 2 more weeks it would have been perfect.  No worries, there are plenty more growing.  Some as big as the one I cut open, others the size of an apple. 

Lessons learned:

1. Watermelons require a lot of room and sunlight.  Planted early, they don’t do much until July-August.
2. They really sprawl and cling onto anything they can grab, then they grow straight up, even 5-10 feet off the ground.  Problem is what to do with a 10 pound watermelon dangling in the air.
3. Better to pinch off the smaller fruits and allow the plant to concentrate on making one big melon than 4 small ones.
4. Use mulch under the growing melon so that it doesn’t sit on the soil directly.

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I’ve started to pick some of my carrots from the garden.  At first I was disappointed in their appearance, scrawny little stubs that they were.  Then I realized it was unfair to compare my first attempt at growing anything to the showroom specimens in my local supermarket.  Especially when they aren’t even the same species.

Most supermarket carrots are of the Danvers variety, the kind Bugs Bunny eats.  I grew the Scarlet Nantes type , which are short and stubby.  What they lack in looks, they supposedly make up for in sweetness.  To be honest, I ate one fresh from the garden and it tasted like a carrot.  No, I didn’t say “That’s one tasty carrot!”  But at least I didn’t gag.

I planted the carrot seeds late April in a tray of potting soil.  Of all the seeds I planted, these had the highest germination rate.  Nearly every one grew into a plant.  When about 2 inches tall I transplanted them into raised rows 4 inches apart.  They required almost no care other than weeding.  As they grow low to the ground, you have to watch for other plants shading them.  Provide about an inch of water per week.  With all the hail and rain we had this year, not a single carrot suffered storm damage.

What I learned. 

1. Pick the carrots before the tops harden in the sun.
2. Really sift the soil for rocks and pebbles.  Rocks make the carrot bend out of shape and stunt it’s growth.
3. Probably no point using potting soil and then transplanting.  They seem hardy enough to plant right into the soil.
4. Dig the carrots out rather than yanking, especially if their shapes aren’t perfect cylinders.
5. Carrot seeds are dirt cheap.  You can get a few hundred for a dollar.  Plant them right into the garden in a straight line, then thin them later.  It will save you a bit of work as it’s easier to yank out a few than to delicately transplant a seedling.

My plan is to let at least one of the plants grow to seed.  I’m hoping to either grow a 2nd crop this year, or save the seeds for next year.  Carrots are a great crop for the novice gardener.  But unless you want to grow 100% of your vegetables, I didn’t taste anything so wonderful about home grown carrots compared to store carrots.  But if you regularly buy carrots, you could save some money in the long run as the seeds are so cheap.

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It was with mixed emotions that I woke up today to learn that Entrecard was sold.  Sometimes a leader is SO bad you begin to enjoy their nonsense.  Graham Langdon was Kim Jung Il with an asshat, running his online version of North Korea into the ground.  The following is the main announcement from the Entrecard blog.

“It is with great excitement that I announce Entrecard.com, Inc. has been Acquired by ZipRunner Inc.

ZipRunner has the resources, vision, and dedication to Entrecard that will allow it to grow in pursuit of the vision I laid out nearly two years ago.

Moving forward, my relationship to Entrecard will be that of an advisor, and I will help the good folks at ZipRunner take the whole project to the next level.”

Great, so the grand leader is “staying on as an advisor”. If I could have given Ziprunner one bit of advice, it would have been to lose the cancer known as Graham. Other than alienating people left and right, what expertise does Graham possibly bring to the table? “Dude, if you ever find yourself late at night in a drunken threesome with enraged sealions, take my advice, drop the acai bowl, but hold onto the cell phone! Believe me, I’ve been there”.  If you want , NAY, crave additional Graham mockery, then head on over to yet another soon to fail blog started by Graham: http://ontrapranore.com/.

Now, what does this mean for the bloggers who still use Entrecard? Well, Ziprunner certainly didn’t buy it to cavort around techcrunch parties as “Mr. Web Asshat 2.0″ bogarting every joint he can get his hands on. They bought it to turn a profit. Bottom line is they bought a list of bloggers. Names, emails, home addresses, social security numbers, and all.

Who is Ziprunner? 

2168 S ATLANTIC BLVD #232  Belongs to Powweb.  Hmm, now the great turnip wheels begin to spin.  Remember Entrecard’s original investor, Andrew Te?  Entrecard has already received a $112,000 investment from them.  So either Graham sold EC to the original investor, or he simply lost control of the company because he couldn’t sell EC for enough to repay the 112k.   I guess the way Graham said it sounds so much better than “I f cked up and the investor took Entrecard because I didn’t meet my obligations”.  Some sort of deal probably was struck as part of the original venture capital agreement, hence the “staying on as advisor” nonsense.  Buy-out or not.

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