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

First Turnips Harvested in July

July's last meeting of the Helping Hands 4-H Garden Club came in the same week as the county fair. Whew! These kids have been busy! The night before our garden meeting, it was our club's turn to work in the 4-H food booth helping to raise funds for the county 4-H program. Thanks to the 16 kids and 10 adults who turned out to help. Several of those same kids came in the next morning in time for gardening.

The tomatoes in bed 8 had blighted leaves, so one of the first tasks was to get busy pulling those leaves off. Mrs. W. reminded the kids, "Now, don't put those in the compost pile, they have a disease, so we will have to throw those away somewhere else".

Bed 5 still have large holes in the cabbage leaves. There was a spider present, but Mrs. W. said, "He's probably doing the garden good, it's a grub that's causing this problem". One idea suggested was a floating row cover which would allow sun in but keep the white butterfly from landing and laying her eggs on the plant. Alison said, "Hey, me and my friend like to catch those butterflies."

Bed 3 had some space, so kids replanted beans, swiss chard and radishes today. The lettuce planted last time is not doing very well. It's probably too hot for lettuce this time of year.

Mr. P. brought supplies to assemble the last 4 tomato cages and each of the students present took a turn with the hammer and drill helping to put the cages together.

Today's harvest included a huge turnip which Alison and her mother both had to pull together to get it out of the ground. Click the photo to see just how huge this turnip was. (yes, that's my camera strap in the photo, just ignore it, ok?) Thirteen turnips in all were harvested, we cut up one to try and everyone thought they were great. "I'm going to go buy lots of these, they're good!" said one of the girls.


Can you believe how much space these turnips took up in this bed? just look at how empty it looks now that the girls have harvested all of the turnips.

Mrs. A. from the food pantry surprised the children by coming to visit us this week in the garden. She came to collect two buckets of produce and gladly posed for a photo. "Turnips and peppers, that will make a lot of people happy."










One of the final tasks is to take some measurements and complete garden journals. Dylan has been watching the sunflowers grow in bed 3. Here's what he's found out so far:

• June 29 more than a "hand" tall
• July 27 26" tall (right) and 29" tall (left)
• Aug 10 34" tall (right) & 38" tall (left)