Black Gumbo

Callie helped me with the last of our raised beds, we had to turn the soil in this one pretty deeply. Unfortunately the fallow year was not kind to this last bed, Ike dropped heavy tree limbs on it and it had lots of compacted soil. I'd rather have preserved the soil's natural 'bio-balance' by not disturbing it too terribly much, but we had to remove plenty of deep rooted weeds and loosen it up. Well, at least its nice and rich.

We planted this garden plot knowing it will receive less sun than the other two, it is a little close to some trees. I placed beets here, and some Star of David okra, hoping the okra will get enough light to at least produce, but knowing it won't get unruly due to less than full sun.

We put some greens and carrots in the center plot and some radishes in the leftover portions of our first plot. Our cowpeas have sprouted and hopefully will be as prolific and vigorous as previous years, I'll be replacing the radishes and carrots with more cowpeas later in the season since they grow well through the heat of summer.

So technically, the raised beds are planted. We'll move on to the pots next. My daughter, my son and I will be potting our tomatoes this weekend, they are getting a little leggy and are overdue to be transplanted. If the potted tomatoes do well, we should have quite an abundance of them, and many varieties!