Hi All,
I am back! Tod and I took the van for it’s inaugural camping trip and it was SO NICE! We spent the 1st night at Sardine Lake. Not a lot to do there but the camp site was quiet and well kept. Good place to spend a night or 2. Next we headed up to Lassen for the night, spent it in the parking lot and again a quiet spot. We got to see the stars since I woke up at 1am to use the bathroom! Beautiful! We hiked Bumpass Hell the next day-amazing hot springs at the end of the trail but not for soaking in! After that we headed up to Medicine Lake to meet up with my youngest, her fiancé and Tod’s friend Brian & his wife Rose. The lake was warm, the wind wasn’t but I still took a dip because the water was beautiful! We hiked Glass Mountain…think Modor! It was another quiet camp site until Friday night, lol! Saturday we ended up heading out due to the wind and headed up to spend a night by Shasta. We had an adventure there but I think that is a bit too involved to write here! We headed out Sunday morning and got home round about 2:30 with just enough energy to unload what we needed and the next day we took the van apart so Tod could reload it for work!
Last week in the garden;
Peas & Me! We switched their shift to Wednesday mornings from 8:30 to 10:30 since Fridays are a bit hard on the nap schedules;) and the heat! We had 2 Mommas show up with their Littles and they all got busy with the harvest. They started out with beans, moved on to tomatoes, then cherry tomatoes and then over to peppers! It was a rather big harvest day so they did not get a chance to experience chores just yet. They are coming back out this coming Wednesday and they have another Momma and her Little joining them! We are going to stay with the Wednesday shift to see if it will gain some traction with our community. If you know of any Mommas and their Littles please do have them reach out to me on our web site so they can be added to our roster for Peas & Me!
Kaleidoscope was back out for 2 shifts. The first shift helped Kelly & Enrique out with filling up the ditch in front of AB10, feeding & watering the worms in the bin and planting Black Eyed Peas in bed R01. The second shift continued planning bed R01 with Black Eyed Peas, they also cleaned labels (which we just started using for our Fall seed starts) and watered in the last of the trees in the compost bunker awaiting their plant date in the expansion.
Disease/pest maintenance happening in the garden. In the Orchard there is blight that is being pruned out. In some of the beds we are handling the spider mite problem with neem oil. A mouse was found in the Office so a trap was set. We are still researching the best way to keep the ground squirrel population at a manageable level. Burrow Busters helped to get it under some sort of control but we need to continue maintenance between this visits. Part of that is planting the new expansion beds with oregano, rosemary and wild radish along the outside of the beds to create a hedgerow that the squirrels will hopefully not want to cross!
The plants continue growing and as they do we need to keep them out of the paths so we don’t walk all over them. When that happens that ends up inviting disease and pests because the plants are so worn out from being walked on! You all continued the work of tying up tomato branches, weaving bitter melon plants into the trellis/tunnel, tucking squash plants back into their beds as well as weaving them into trellises and weaving opo onto it’s tunnel.
Irrometer work continued with new ditches being dug next to bed K07. Do be careful walking through the garden as we continue this work.
Seeds are being started for plating between seasons as well as getting ready for Fall. Koatsuna greens, Japanese Giant Red mustard, Cascade Glaze collards and Winwin greens were all started last week. The last of the Millionaire eggplants were planted in bed B13 along with some Rat Tail radishes! Do keep an eye out in beds for radishes, carrots and beets that were planted by Aditi before she left. Stephen and I saw some getting ready in bed B06 the other day. We thought they needed a little more time but those are not the only ones to look out for. I will try to get a list together of the beds to look out for and post them on harvest days.
Tree irrigation lines were finished in the P beds, empty tomato cages were moved out of beds and into beds with tomato plants needing the cages. Weeding and then more weeding was done Garden Wide. LP cleaned out bed N11 to give room to the peppers that were purposely planted out there! The Northeast Native Hedgerow was weeded and mapped. Kelly got back on the tractor to fill the Compost Hub.
You all harvested 448# of produce to send in to the food pantries! About 70# of that went to help out Culinary Angels with their mission to get nutritious foods to their client patients!
Thank you everyone for helping out in the garden!
Take care
Lori