Read the latest from Co-op Organic Garden manager Stacey...
Hello,
A garden update for this week:
The beans are in full swing, it takes up to 2.5 hours a day to
pick them all! They should be tapering off soon.
The blood meal seems to have worked to keep the ground hog away
for the time being. Japanese beetles are now the pest of the week.
I've dug new potatoes, which if I do say so myself are
amazing. They are huge. I really think the combination of drip irrigation,
straw hilling and side dressing with bone char was the magic combination!
While the soil test results read that our soil phosphorus levels are high,
potato yields still benefit from a light side dressing of phosphorous.
They suffered severely from leaf hopper damage, however because they are an
early variety it didn't' seem to affect the yield. I would love to do more next
year. Because of the leaf hopper damage, I may need to harvest the
fingerlings for the September dinner early.
We've also started harvesting carrots (3 colors) and giant green
bell peppers. Eggplant and tomatoes should be along soon, along with shell
beans. The tomato plants are loaded, just waiting for them to size
up. A few sungolds are ripening each day, just enough for a snack at this
point.
I've seeded some experimental crops to see if we can create a
really nice mix of fall greens for the harvest dinners including red stem salad
turnip, baby beets, baby chard and daikon to go along (hopefully) a lot of head
lettuce.
We've started cover cropping some of the fallow areas. Luke, from Brookford Farm,
will bring our tiller over next week and help me adjust the PTO shaft to fit
our tractor on site. I'll be able to till up larger sections of the field
with it and get more cover crops in.
Best,
Stacey
