Mid-August Harvest

This week we had more adult volunteers than students in the garden. Summer is in full gear and families are taking advantage of vacation time. We hope everyone is enjoying their last days of summer. As we gathered in the garden it was a record hot day, over 90 degrees with NO wind.
Whew!
Thanks to everyone who came to help.

Observations & activities:
Cucumbers are coming along nicely.

• Mr. P. found calcium deficiency in some of our peppers and tomatoes. "Blossom-end rot".
• Next year we will add some lime to our soil, but will "live with it, for now". Just slice off the bottom and go ahead and eat the rest of it, advised our master gardeners.
  

• Mrs. W. has been coming to remove the caterpillars from the cabbages.
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• We saw a white sulfa butterfly, the likely culprit whose caterpillars are making the holes in our cabbage plants.
• RJ asked, "are those eggs?" Mrs. W. said, "No RJ, those are droppings. So, we know the critters are in there."
  
• We found an unknown "worm", and two of the green cabbage lupers.
• RJ emptied half a shaker of chili powder on the cabbage leaves.
• 3 beds of carrots were thinned out.
• Alison noted "one of the things about the garden is you get to eat food".
  
• We cut open and tasted the green pepper with the blossom end rot.
  
• A skink found a home in the pepper bed. Mr. L. said "don't grab him by the tail".

Today's harvest--we brought a scale and weighed our harvest:

21 Bell Peppers: (our 1st picking )
16 Giant marconi peppers
8 -1/2 total pounds of peppers

Pear tomatoes: (our 1st picking)
4 -3/4 total pounds of turnips, radishes, tomatoes & the thinned carrots