July 26, 2017
I picked Brussels sprouts today. They were covered with aphids but I didn't care. It's been so long since I had a crop, that getting sticky fingers was not a problem. Sitting in the shade washing the sprouts off was the coolest I'd been all day. I've always harvested before in November, and having your hands in cold water was not fun. Today was great. I'm looking forward to the next picking..
I think the reason I've been successful this year is that the plants get afternoon shade. The entire row is up against the fence line and are all producing tight heads. The lettuce is doing great too with afternoon shade. The cabbage under the shade cloth is doing great also. This is the year I learned about shade..
July 28, 2017
This is a difficult time of year to keep your fall transplants from wilting. The boards that were on the seed row to germinate them, are now up on buckets to shade them, and they still need watering every couple of hours. My soil is so porous that water will wick away from the roots if the area surrounding them is less moist. Its like a big sponge..
I have to soak the ground around them out to two feet to keep them from wilting between waterings. I have the rows ready to transplant cauliflower and Brussels sprouts, even though they have just been thinned. I water in the compost on the row days ahead of planting time to activate the microbe soil interface and fill up all the cavities with water..
July 29, 2017
It was another hot one in the garden today. Working in the sun wears you out fast. Us gardeners are looking forward to the invention of wave cancellation technology so we can work in a cone of shade. I don't know what will happen to the photons when we take away their highway though. Closer at hand is probably a solar powered drone, with tin foil thin panels, that hovers ten feet above you using GPS to stay between you and the sun. It would provide a nice breeze too. I used my shade cloth to solve my sun problem..
I straitened out two of the hoops that came with the tunnel, and reinserted them on the ends of the cloth. Then I stretched it between two four foot high tomato towers and had a 4'x10' patch of shade to weed under. It was cool. I'll be using it all over the garden because it's so easy to move. There's a nut sedge patch that I've been putting off weeding but now it's on the schedule to be eliminated. Running a sprinkler next to where you're working also helps cool you down..
