HARVEST DAZE..........

Most of the work in the garden lately has been pawing between vines, stems, and leaves to pick every last cucumber, bean, tomato, etc.  The "fruits of summer" have been coming in full force.  This picture is a good depiction of the current state of affairs...  These veggies were then divided up in to ten shares, and distributed amongst members. 

more mouth watering shots...

This last shot is admittadly not all from the backyard garden.  The good folks over at New Earth Farm have been harvesting boxes and boxes of squash.  More squash than they know what to do with.  This is good news for the members of the Broad Bay CSA, as the home squash has been decimated by vine borers (nasty creatures that lay their eggs in the base of the squash plant, then the evil hatchlings eat their way right through the stem of the plant, effectively killing it).  The beautiful yellow patty pan, long yellow zephyr, and fat watermellon looking magda squash are all from NEF.  Not to fear though, the next wave of squash plants are already underway.  This is the reality with some of the fast growing crops... they go as quickly as they came.  The runner beans that were producing heavily at the beginning of summer are now starting to fade...

Its not by chance that the second wave of bush beans are stepping up to fill the gap...

   

...if you look closely you can find a green, yellow, and purple bean hiding amongst the foliage.  You can imagine how harvesting can become a long and  tedious task.  It does however train the eye to notice small details.  Picking becomes a meditation, and a picker can really get lost in the world of the plant.  One time Melissa  (the best picker I know), grabbed onto a "green bean" that turned out to be a green snake.  Though the snake was a harmless garden snake, it goes to show the perils of being entrenched by nature.  It is not rare, at this time of year,  to hear the wizzing of flying pollinators by the ears.  The beans in the picture above back right up to the center circle garden filled with bee attracting salvia flowers.

          

 The small but brightly colored flowers drive the bees crazy.  Better the flowers than my face.  Any flowers that humans like tend to be liked by bees as well.  Its no surprise that they really love this nice stand of zinneas in the ornamental garden...

And don't forget... without the bees, there'd be none of these...

Thank you bees for the fruits of summer!

Its Warm

Yes, summer is definately here.  Working during the day has been tough, but luckily the summer also brings long days.  Most of the planting has been done after 5,  when the young plants have some reprieve from the direct sun.  One things for sure though, once the plants get established, they relish in the heat.  Things seem to be growing a mile a minute.  If you don't believe me, check out some of these pictures as proof...

The leaf garden has definately filled in since last month.  Mizuna has taken over the left perimeter, while beans and peppers are flourishing on the right. The beets and turnips are almost done and the swiss chard is bold and beautiful. The parsley is filling in.  Eggplant is also going strong. 

Beans haven't started producing yet, but will soon enough

The eggplant is enjoying a nice layer of pompas grass mulch, and hopefully will be producing soon as well.  One thing that does not appreciate the heat is spinach.  Trying to harvest it before it starts to bolt has been a race, and alot has gone to waste.  This is probably the end of the spinach until fall.  But it still looks cool...

We are also having to harvest lettuce when it is small.  Big heads quickly become bitter in the heat, while small ones remain tender and tasty.  The trick is just to plant more and and harvest more. 

We won't let them get much bigger than this.  The same trick is being used for the arugula you can see in the backround.  Now back the the things that do love the heat...

Tomatoes are growing well, and there are many green ones on the vines, but no red ones yet. 

The squash and zucchini are doing amazingly well, and I have already picked a nice basket full.  You can see the sucession planting from right to left, hopefully extending our harvest window.

Pole beans growing wild

Peppers are always slow growing, but eventually they will get there.  These aren't the only ones planted either.  There are all kinds ranging from sweet (bell and banana) to mild (pablano, ancho, serrano ) to very spicy (habanero and scotch bonnet).  These are just a few of the many varieties planted.  I think peppers need a post all to themselves.

The cucumbers are definately behind the rest of the pack, but are growing rapidly and will probbly catch up and produce the same time as everything else. 

Kevin planting more cucumbers.

Despite being over run with dill, there still might be a decent crop of carrots this year.  You probably don't think of other cool weather crops like cauliflower, broccoli and cabbage during this heat, but it is around this time that they are finishing up and being harvested. 

Here is a nice snowball cauliflower.  Unfortunately I failed to get a picture of the beautiful spiral cauliflower that we grew, but I encourage you to go online and look for pictures... I promise you they look just like the pictures.  I also didn't get a good picture of the broccoli, but just imagine a nice head of broccoli in place of the cauliflower.

A nice cabbbage specimen here.  Most of the cabbages were eaten by the root maggots, but the ones that survived seemed to do very well.  This picture also shows something else.  This is the time of year that volunteer plants are sprouting up everywhere.  Whether from the compost, or fallen fruit, these plants are offering up their bounty to us for free and we will take it.  As long as they don't get too much in the way of another important crop, we will let them grow to fruition.  The number one volunteer crop this year is tomatoes, and you can see one popping up in the bottom of this picture. 

Thanks for reading everyone and good luck dodging the heat!

 

 

Warming up

Well its been pretty warm for this time of year, but none of the veggies seem to be complaining...

The leaf garden is chugging along.  Unfortunately the potatoes have failed to pop up, with the exception of one.  The likely culprit in this instance is burrowing creatures like moles and voles.  Luckily there is a secret patch of potatoes elsewhere which might be appearing in the blog soon.  In place of the potatoes we will be planting black beauty and white ghost eggplant. 

...the collards are going crazy, as are all of the other leafy greens like kale, swiss chard, bok choy, and mizuna.

... a beautiful contrast of swiss chard, curly green and black kale, and red sails lettuce.  Never heard of red sails? How about deer tongue...

I am trying to produce lettuce year round, we will see how it goes.

Here is the years first stand of pole beans, delicious raw fresh off the vine.  The beans are interplanted with radishes, which will be fully harvested by the time the beans need the space.  The leaf garden has a similar story, with one row of mizuna in between two rows of bush beans.

...cilantro is thriving, as are the dill and carrots...

   

 The darker green, dill, was not planted, but rather is volunteering.  Dill was planted in this area last year and it has reseeded.  Hopefully the carrots will be able to thrive amongst it, because i'm surely not planning on removing it.  I have not yet sown any dill this year and these few plants will grow into quite alot of dill.

 

...The kohlrabi is doing its kohlrabi bulbing thing, as are the turnips... 

Its friend, the beet, is a much slower grower, and although they were sown at the same time, no bulbing has occured yet...

Although most of the arugula went to seed before it could be harvested, it is still edible, only with a threefold spicyness.  Some hardcore arugula enthusiasts actually prefer the post bolt flavor.

 

The tomatoes seem to be on steroids, but its really nothin more than some good ol fashion compost, rock dust, dried manure, and crushed up shells. The other summer crops are still young, but will soon catch up to the tomatoes.

Bell peppers, eggplant, summer squash, and zucchini.

And finally a few eye pleasers...

 fuzzy lambs ear buds

 the roses are in bloom

beautiful zinnies and celosias, next to a more than cool miniature japanese maple

We love leaves

Behold the Leaf Garden.  It was not planned, but once the garden was all tilled up, we noticed that the shape resembled a leaf.  We added the stone paths to be the veins.  The only raised bed in this section borders the parimeter. It is separaterd from the rest of the area with a narrow, one foot path.  The inside section, minus the stone paths, will be entirely planted up, with little room to move around. It is a maximum bounty area.  And just as the leaf is the part of the plant that captures sunlight, this is one of the sunniest areas of the entire garden!  So far its been planted with beets, swiss chard, parsley, green onions, mustard, mizuna, lettuce, bush beans, and yukon gold potatoes. 

Looking up from the leaf garden, you can see that some of the beds are covered again.  Since the attack of the root maggots, we have replanted most of the crops that the maggots destroyed.  The covers should prevent the adult flies from laying eggs near the base of the plants.  Only time will tell if this method works.  There is kale (green, black and red), collards, and bokchoy.  We didn't plant any broccoli, cauliflower, or cabbage.  It is getting too late for these temperature sensative crops, and lately it has felt more like summer than spring.  Where did spring go??    Other than these crops, we have also planted more swiss chard, spinach, carrots, beets, and radishes, deer tongue and red sails lettuce, and sown pole beans.   Next will be updates on the summer crops... aka tomatoes, eggplant...

ATTACK OF THE ROOT MAGGOTS!!

It all started like any other fine day here at the Broad Bay CSA.  The sun was shining, weather was sweet, and I was walking barefoot around the garden checking things out as I normally do.  The day before I had given the whole garden a nice dose of Neptune's Harvest Fish and Seaweed fertilizer.  Plants just love this ocean smelling liquid and show their thanks with lush green growth; which is why I was a little surprised to find a few of the cabbage plants looking a little droopy.  They had just recieved a nice dose of water and fertilizer, and weren't showing the love.  The real horror occured when I gave a little tug on one of the cabbage plants to test its all around health. Up came the plant with the greatest of ease,along with, to my disgust, hundreds of little white maggots.

Upon further investigation I have learned....surprise surprise, that these things are called root maggots, or cabbage maggots.  The adult female fly hatches in the spring and then proceeds to lay eggs at the base of brassicas (though brassicas are not their only targets). Once the maggots emerge from egg, they make their way down and start munching on the roots,until the roots are no more!  From above root damage below is displayed in the plant through its stunted growth and the discoloration of leaves.

While staring at these horrible little root maggots I had a memory from a few weeks back when I had just tilled the soil. I was observing little flies, slightly larger than gnats, hovering all around the freshly tilled ground.  I had made a mental note of this because it seemed strange.

In the dealing with the root maggots I have had many casualties. To my dismay, I have ripped up nearly a hundred plants; kale, mizuna, cabbage, brocoli, cauliflower,...........  the heading plants  (cabbage, cauliflower and broccoli) are unfortunately now too late to replant and get a decent crop, they just cannot handle the heat. 

Af for the control of these pests a few things are possible

1. Ripping up all infested plants and destroying them, therefore breaking the lifecycle

2. Covering all newly planted plants with horticultural cloth

3. Spraying diatomaceous earth on the freshly tilled/planted soil.  This is like shards of glass to an insect stopping them from landing on a surface.

4. Populating the soil with beneficial nematodes that like to eat the maggots in their larva stage

With a combination of all the above I will protect my brassica plants from this enemy species.

...cabbage plants not thriving, the maggots are busy munching away root..

Look very closely and you can see many maggots...

 DIE MAGGOTS DIE!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Rain Rain...

Well as you know, the circle garden is full.  But the sunroom and greenhouse are once again bursting at the seams with anxious greenery.  The swiss chard is sitting, the parsley is perculating, the cabbage is feeling cooped up, and the lettuce would love to stretch its legs.  These plants want out!!!

 

So every chance I get, when the soil dries out in between rainy days, I am out there working on the next section.  This area will be done a little differently than the circle garden.  Instead of removing each chunk of sod by hand, I am shredding everything into the soil with the tiller.  This requires a bit of wire grass removal, but is much quicker and easier than the intensive hand method.  The soil won't be dug as deeply, but will still produce nice crops of the smaller plants like chard, lettuce, kale, and spinach.

    

As you can see, the triangularish shaped section is not yet finished... the tips still need some work.  After the tilling is complete, I will use a rake to shape the beds and paths.  Then I will add compost, clay (the soil here is just too sandy), and organic fertilizer.  Only a few more days of work and this baby will be all planted up!   Meanwhile.....   spinach and kale looking like a sea of green....

  

Chocolate mint and Spearmint

ROSEMARY!!

Any one want a radish?

Bok Choy

Arugula

Tatsoi

Collards

Broccoli

 

All growing steadily and happily.   Adding to the diverse list is the new onion section that we recently created down by the water, next to the dock...

These terraces are a combination of sandy soil, added clay, and compost.  Although not pictured, baby onion plants have since been planted here, two rows per bed, 4 inches in between each plant.  Some time during the summer, hundreds of onions will be harvested here.  The seed potatoes are growing eyes like crazy and will be cut up and planted soon...

And try to contain your excitement, but the seasons first tomatoes will also be ready for planting soon...

Have you started your gardens yet???