4th week of May 2010

Broccoli Warm weather has finally come and we are working up a good sweat out in the garden and the preferred times to do the heavy jobs are early morning and evening. That makes afternoons an ideal time to write my garden journal plus I have a fall garden article due for Ed's Garden Gazette. The smell of sweet hay makes garden work extra pleasurable since Olin just mowed 20 acres of grass on Monday. Our neighbor is scheduled to come bale the hay into large square bales this weekend if the weather holds. In the garden the warm weather is ripening things like this first head of broccoli that we ate in stir fry right after its photo session. We took waterwalls off the early tomatoes, some of which are setting fruit already, and a few zucchini plants that were under barrels are starting to bloom. All the white barrel cold frames went into storage, the plastic will come off the greenhouse and everything is ready to go out on it's own. I have about 70 tomato plants including about 15 varieties in the ground and as always, am looking at some of the greenhouse leftovers and trying to decide if it is wiser to plant more, share them with friends or compost them. One thing I need to remember is that EVERYONE has tomatoes in August and they are difficult to sell. Plus I am scheduling several cold frame seminars in August and a mountain of tomatoes may prove to be a big headache in the midst of preparing for classes. Peppers and basil are in the ground, cucumber hills are planted and we are hoping to put down plastic for melons later this week. The early beans are coming along nicely and I made the next succession planting of Jade and Roma beans. We planted 6 rows of Bloody Butcher corn (an heirloom cornmeal type) along with sorghum cane in an area that will be cultivated with the Farmall Cub tractor.

Weeding Carrots This week involved plenty of planting but the weeds also need attention. The carrot bed is always a tedious hand weeding job but I offered to pay our 8 year old to do the job so here he is hard at work. My mom carefully fine tuned the pea rows and I'm having the kids scratch through garden paths with the stirrup hoe while the weeds are tiny. So one key to keeping weeds in check is having a willing work force. We also seem to have an abundant crop of Canada thistles that we are trying to keep under control before they go to seed. I've talked to other gardeners who agree that the thistles are extra thick in their plots this year too. Our daughter even wondered if thistles could be a healthy crop to eat if you cooked them right since their roots are so long and deep. I think she has heard me use the phrase "If you can't beat them, eat them" and talk about the benefits of eating weeds like stinging nettle a few too many times!

Nepali's Garden A new adventure for us this year is renting garden space to a Nepali family. Here they are at work in their section back in the orchard patch. It has been interesting to get to know them and to observe their gardening strategy. About half of their garden was planted with mustard greens in early April. It is now about 8 inches tall and thick over the whole area. They harvested some greens in bundles and planted tomatoes and over 50 hot chili pepper plants in the empty spaces. Mustard greens are one of their cooking staples and it looks like there are still enough left to feed their whole neighborhood! One of my greens mixes has purple mustard in it and my family is not fond of it's strong flavor so they are also digging up some of those seedlings to transplant to their garden. They also planted red potatoes, onions and pumpkins which they grow both for the fruit and the young greens. The ladies enjoy tasting some of my herbs and smelling my flowers and are excited when they find something that is familiar from their country.