June 21, 2021
After 2020’s successful gardening season and the bountiful harvest given to Prescott-area food banks, 2021 promises to be even better.
We have expanded the number of conventional planting beds and now have three beds. The new bed gets more sun than the other beds and thus is ideal for growing sun-loving crops, such as tomatoes, peppers, and winter squash.
The photos show the state of the garden as of June 25th. No harvests have occurred so far this year, but some of the crops will be ready in the next few weeks. Small cherry tomatoes have formed with just a few just starting to turn red/orange.
Two of the three beds are mulched with wood chips and those beds have few weeds. The middle bed containing green beans has not been mulched. It is obvious that mulching helps as there are many grass weeds among the beans!
Our Aquaponics bed is running as Hydroponics, i.e., without fish this year. We have a bumper crop of tomato plants so far. We removed the floating bed and replaced it with a bead bed this year which provides us with more growing room.
August 6, 2021:
We added some flagging and strings to deter the deer. In the previous month the deer had jumped our fence and made quick work of our green beans. Only now are the beans growing well again.
We are now actively harvesting and donating our produce to the local food banks. On this particular day, the produce was given to the Chino Valley Food Bank.
The aquaponics bed is mainly tomatoes and is growing very well.
August 6th Harvest
Overview of the PUUF Garden. 3 conventional beds to the left with aquaponics to the right.
Aquaponics tomato bed