Unfortunately. much of our lettuce did not survive the long hot weekend. Although we managed to salvage some of it, much of it had to go to compost since lettuce does not grow well in extremely hot weather conditions. So, we harvested this old lettuce in hopes that the next batch of lettuce would survive better once we transplant it. In total, we harvested 37.5 pounds of lettuce today!! On the other hand, we also managed to harvest the carrots in the bed against the wall of the building. These carrots were incredibly tasty and large. In total, there were 12.5 pounds of carrots. Furthermore, we should be ready for a snow pea harvest soon since there are multiple snow pea pods on the plants. Even the scapes on the garlic look as though they are almost ready to be harvested - we just have to wait until they curl a bit more. Overall, however, the garden is looking phenomenal and has multiple crops which will soon be ready for a large harvest.
Today we finished transplanting more tomatoes. This is the main focus of our time right now since the tomatoes are ready to go in the ground - the weather is warm enough (temperatures do not dip below 40 at night anymore) and the irrigation system is set up so that we no longer have to worry about watering the tomatoes outside every day. Again, we made sure to plant these tomatoes deep so that they will have a strong root system. Over the next few weeks we plan on transplanting pepper plants and eggplants in the available space in the beds. Also, as said in the previous post, we plan on harvesting carrots and lettuce soon. We also plan to harvest the arugula soon since it has grown fast and is ready to be picked. In addition, although the irrigation system is set up, we still must remember to water the tomato plants inside the greenhouse every day as well as the crops in the raised beds and the pots which are not part of the irrigation system. Overall, the garden is looking amazing and the crops are flourishing.
Today we tilled up the area of the beds in which we would be planting tomatoes. This fluffs the soil and mixes some of the nutrients in the soil to ensure that our tomato plants will grow healthy and will survive the transplant. When transplanting the tomatoes, we bury them deep at a 45 degree angle to the ground. We want to ensure that the max amount of stem is in the ground (which will later become part of the root system of the tomato plant) and that only the top few leaves are above the ground. We managed to plant about 18 tomato plants today and will continue to plant more on Friday. Furthermore, the carrots are ready to be harvested soon. We will probably harvest these next week along with another bed of lettuce.
These two days have been major transplanting days for cucumbers. We managed to transplant about 40-50 cucumbers - and we still have more! Some of the cucumbers, which are more bush-like, ended up in pots, while the ones we planted in the beds will grow up a lattice. Since we had so many left over potatoes, we planted two of these in a pot as well. We also renovated one of the beds from which we harvested lettuce - we tilled and then added more soil to it. This way, the bed will be ready for new crops to be transplanted next week. In addition, we have been keeping our eyes on any weeds popping up in the beds and pulling these before they can spread. Finally, we planted a variety of pole beans near the fencing so that they will be able to grow up the fence. Next week we also anticipate a large amount of tomato, pepper, and eggplant transplanting. In addition, the scapes on the garlic plants will be ready for harvesting soon. We are also planning on cleaning out our mini greenhouse to make room for more crops - most likely lettuce again. As the summer arrives, we have plenty of work to do in the garden!
On Tuesday, we managed to plant two new flats of lettuce since the lettuce in the garden will be ready to harvest soon. The idea is that we will always have a new flat of lettuce to go into the garden once we harvest the lettuce from the bed of the garden. Before we transplant new lettuce into the garden beds, however, we will have to renovate the beds (fluff, add new soil, and add fertilizer). We also continued to organize the remaining plants from the plant sale in the greenhouse. Since we still have many plants, we are still open to sales! If you would like to purchase a plant, or have any questions about the plant sale/garden in general, please feel free to contact us on our "contact us" page! Today (Thursday), we also planted cucumbers using the soil blocker. The soil blocker, which creates 2x2 inch square blocks of soil will allow the cucumber to grow in the block and be transplanted later on without damaging the roots (this is very important since cucumbers are a root crop and may easily die if their root systems are damaged). Tomorrow, we will continue to plant new crops and also harvest lettuce in the garden. Since the weather has been so warm lately, we need to harvest the lettuce soon so that it does not bolt! As soon as we harvest, we will be able to renovate those beds and put in a whole new set of lettuce. The season has started to
The WHS Organic Garden plant sale is tomorrow at Village Market from 10 am - 2 pm!! We have so many plants (tomato, eggplant, and pepper) which we will be bringing to the Market tomorrow morning. We spent all week transplanting and preparing for this plant sale since there has not been much other work necessary in the garden at the moment. The rest of the garden is flourishing and will be ready for work next week, but for the past week we have not had to do much intensive labor in the garden (the drip irrigation has been set in place, so we do not have to water the garden everyday,
Today we focused on transplanting tomato plants into pots in preparation for our plant sale this Saturday, May 5, at Village Market from 10am - 2pm! We have a surplus of tomato, eggplant, and pepper plants which will all be at the plant sale. We also had to water all of the plants in the greenhouse since the hot weather has dried up much of the water in the soil. Over the next few days we will continue to transplant and water in the greenhouse.
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AuthorsCathryn Duemmler Archives
July 2012
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