On the evening of Friday August 5, and in an impromptu session Saturday
morning, August 6, Bruce and Lance worked on various tasks.
The main effort on Friday was to plant carrots and parsnips in the
west end of bed B4. We are attempting succession-planting with carrots,
planting every three weeks or so in order to have a more continuous
harvest. The only crop previously grown here was radishes,
so the soil should be fertile. This is the only area prepared
for carrots and similar crops (deeply double dug, rocks removed, clods
broken up) and not already used for carrots. Five rows of seeds were
planted, one variety per row (except for the north row). From south
to north: “New Kuroda” carrots in the southern row, “All American”
heirloom parsnips in the second row, “Babette” carrots in the third
row, “Gladiator” parsnips in the fourth row. In the fifth (north)
row, “King Midas” carrots were planted starting at the west end
until we ran out of seed, then “Long Imperator” carrots finished the row.
The parsnips are in middle rows to reduce exposure, their greens can cause
irritating rashes. This is the first time the garden has grown parsnips.
Most of the summer squash planted on July 16 looked unhealthy, so
they were given some compost tea. More bindweed was pulled from
tomato beds. This is difficult because many tomato vines are still
partly sprawled on the ground, making it hard to find and reach the
bindweed stems and roots. Some of the weeded areas were given more
mulch, to make it harder for more weeds to sprout.
The first female butternut winter squash blossoms were observed Thursday,
August 4. On Saturday, 10 were seen. It begins to appear that we will
have some to harvest.
More tomatoes were tied to their trellises.
We observed lodging (falling over) of the Painted Mountain corn.
This corn variety has lodged in a private garden also. We are
hoping that this is not a serious problem.
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