July in the Garden

July 23rd, 2009 at 06:53am Jill Beyer

The garden has been long planted.  Green beans, summer squashes, and cucumbers are finally sizable.  The long awaited tomatoes are lightening up and showing signs of ripening.
Yukon gold potatoes are fork ready.  The “experimental” artichokes have chokes.  Some have been good.  Now I can say I’ve seen artichokes growing. I don’t think they’re worth the effort as a production crop in this climate, but I’ll probably plant them again as a novelty. 

The weeds are booming in all the rain.  Many crops, lettuces, broccoli, and spinach are finishing or harvested. Weeding those becomes easy with the tiller.  (Be productive or be gone.)  This leaves beds for replanting.  There’s no sense in leaving open beds when there are still 60 or more growing days left. 

So what to plant?  Consider any crops that will mature in 60 days, spinach, green beans, lettuce, Swiss chard, and  radishes.  Many plantings will survive frost!  Consider broccoli, kohlrabi, carrots, beets, greens, cauliflower, and peas. Planting from seed this time of the year can become a challenge.  The weeds germinate as fast as the crop seeds.  We manage this by multi-planting seeds  into soil cubes.  4 beet seeds, 12 green onion seeds, 4 spinach seeds, 4 carrot seeds, etc. When transplanted into the garden they have a 4 week advantage on the weeds. They’re a snap to weed and there is no thinning.   When the sweet corn is finished and the tomatoes have become “routine”, it’s always a treat to welcome “new-again” crops. 

The Japanese beetles seem to be fewer in number this year.  Maybe it’s because they are really active when the air is warmer.   Or maybe it’s because our 15 Guinea fowl are actively feeding in the garden several times a day.  We started feeding them beetles that Bill bopped into soapy water.  They acquire a taste for what they are fed.  It seems to have worked.  We herd them with two bamboo poles to the garden where we want them to start feeding.  Since they can’t quite reach all the beetles on the tall raspberries, we shake the  canes, the beetles fall, and the birds gobble up breakfast.  They then head to the lower growing strawberries, eat until they’re sated, then nap or head back to their house.  Then back to the garden for lunch.

Each season has it’s challenges.  Each challenge is welcomed and dealt with.  Of course there are the unknown challenges along the way.  With little real summer this year, will the “hot season” crops  produce?  But then, we never had to water…so far.

Entry Filed under: Eat locally