April 30, 2019
Asparagus season is in full swing, and after eating it every night for two weeks we can start sharing now. I'm not tired of it yet, but feel a little guilty for having so much. Corn on the cob is something else that I can have every night, all summer long, without getting tired of it. The spinach is also abundant now and has not had any leaf miner damage. Early in the season is too cool for the flies and may be the reason early February 5th plantings are recommended..
I found some eggs on the bottom of a spinach leaf, and one of the plants is forming seeds so the good times are coming to an end. Soon the artichokes will be replacing the asparagus as our veggie main course, and we'll be back to chard every night as a veggie staple. Swiss chard tolerates heat well and lasts all summer long. It's your "go to" plant for year round leafy greens, and then letting it go to seed and overwintering it makes it an extremely prolific and easy crop..
May 01, 2019
I planted the second planting of corn already and we've had frosts for the last three nights. I could have lost my whole summer garden if I didn't pay attention. As I ran my finger along the ground to make a furrow for the corn seeds there was a section that was too hard for my finger. I got my four pronged tool and scraped a one inch deep trough, dropped the seeds in a foot apart, and covered them up. Bad decision..
The corn seeds got pushed up out of the soil by the pencil lead thick tap root. I should have dug the furrow twice as deep and backfilled it half way with loose soil. The ground underneath the seeds should not have been uncultivated hard packed earth. This is an example of seeds not having enough weight on top of them for back pressure..
May 02, 2019
I got to fish emulsion all my Cole crops yesterday. It's one of my favorite things to do in the garden. I use a watering can and get to spend a few moments with each plant. They are all different, unique and beautiful, and I seem to absorb some of their beauty just by pausing over them briefly. Back when we were younger, money was tight, and I didn't follow through on an application schedule of every three weeks during the growing season. I believed that well composted and mulched soil would provide enough nitrogen to grow healthy plants..
It does, but if you want big, healthy veggies like you see in the agracultural exhibit at your local county fair, fertilizing is required. Fish emulsion is not only organic, but you can't burn your plants with it by overdosing. It becomes a part of the soil, resting in the mulch to begin decomposing, then feeding the microbes that feed the plants. Some people even apply it to their compost piles to help the bacteria break down the organic material. It doesn't leach through the ground as readily as other liquid fertilizers because it bonds with it, and doesn't leave behind salts because it's not foreign to it..
