PAR Davies 5/11/13

Workers today were Anne, Mary Elizabeth, Sally Dunn (intern and first time worker), and myself. Sally had attended our garden classes at Davies last year. There were not a lot of us, but we got some much needed chores done. We enjoyed having you work with us Sally, and hope you come back.

Anne tackled the broccoli and cabbage for the Harlequins. She didn't see a lot of bugs but got a lot of eggs. She said to look for the eggs around the bottom leaves on the broccoli. She did mention that she saw some tiny heads of broccoli forming!! Hooray. I am ready to get the cabbage and broccoli outa there.

Sally mulching the carrots and basil

 Sally mentioned that in her home mulch pile, she had trouble with raccoons getting in it. She started topping it off with coffee grounds and they have let it alone since. We haven't had this problem, but someone might like to try this.

I have cleaned off the unit inside the gate for workers to put their keys, phones, drinks, etc. We can keep this area free of garden stuff since we have our sink area now. Sometimes if you stash your things on the bench or table, they get mixed up with other things. This way your things will stay clean and you won't forget them when you leave (maybe). There are even little pegs to hang whatever. And if you bring your wine glass, there are slots at the very top.

Handy catch-all

Barbara Pierce gave me some sedum that does well in the sun, so Mary Elizabeth filled 3 file drawers with that. She then busied herself with weeding and mulching. There will be more of that to do Wednesday. Sally and I worked on tomatoes. Sally planted a row of some more Jet Star. We still have the Florida 91's to get from Sharon, and we will put these in Bed #1. That should about do us on tomatoes, except for some sickly plants we've been nursing along that are almost ready to transplant. Speaking of tomatoes….they are coming along and growing very fast. They are loaded with buds and blooms, and I expect to see some tiny tomatoes by Wednesday. I checked the Beefsteak where we fertilized half of them with Comfrey. They are all still alive, and it may be my imagination, but it seems that the Comfrey ones had more blooms…like I said, it may be my imagination. So Wednesday we will have a Comfrey Fest and use up all we've brewed so far. All of you with sensitive olfactory systems will have to keep your distance.

While mulching and weeding we discovered pretty many earthworms in the beds! Does that make you happy G.A.? Well, we all should be happy about that.

The Dixie Butter Beans and Santa Anna Pole Beans are emerging. The watermelon is up but not the cantaloupe (these are on the hugelkultur). I picked our first strawberries. We couldn't send them to the shelter, so I gave them to Mary Elizabeth, since she is the one who brought the strawberry plants and planted them last fall on a very cold day.

Our first harvest of pretty berries

We have plenty of bags for now and won't need any more for a while. The storage container is full, so I have hung the extras in the barn (see below) to keep dry. We are still accepting plastic produce containers though.

 

I think Saturdays are going to work out just fine, and for now we will consider it permanent through the summer. There will be lots to do Wednesday and I will give you a list when I send out my email Monday.

I hope you who are mothers had a great Mother’s Day.

'Til later,

Dianne