Sky to Ground

Last week was a catch up clean up maintenance kind of week, with a smattering of transplanting and harvesting thrown in. With the help of CSA members we weeded about 80% of the onion patch. After trimming the plants in the 'living mulch' aisles with our very effective at this weed-whacker and pulling/cutting the weeds right around the onion plants, the patch is starting to look almost 'good as new'. The onions are very appreciative to have some unobstructed views and consumption of the sun without rubbing shoulders with more aggressive plant family members.

We also fortunately found time to give tomato plants in the caterpillar tunnels some much much needed attention. Tomatoes are a sprawling, vining crop that we train to a one leader system, which requires consistent weekly removal of 'suckers' (smaller side growth shoots). Due to some good weather the past couple of weeks we spent all of our time doing outside work, reserving tunnel work for wet weather. It stayed dry, and we got behind, and each tomato plant had about 10 suckers to remove and 4' of vine to clip to suspended string. It was slow going work, but a nice change, and we're all caught up there now. Until this week when we need to go back in there and prune and clip additional new growth because they grow like mad this time of year.

I almost forgot about transplanting leeks, another huge project that is now off this year's to-do list. Getting those and the 2nd round of tomatoes in the ground more-or-less marks the transition from springtime with summer harvest in mind to summertime planting with fall harvest in mind (demarcation is not clear-cut). I was just surprised to learn (or be reminded) that we actually seed fall broccoli, cauliflower, and cabbage this week. Seeding these crops and having them grow happily in trays in the greenhouse during the hot summer is a bit challenging. We start by putting the 48 trays with 6000 seeds in them under the shade cloth in the hoop house to keep the hot sun from heating the potting soil and tray too much (which can cause erratic germination). Once they begin germinating we'll move them back into the greenhouse which better protects them from pests but unfortunately can be excessively hot even when constantly venting. We've left them in the hoop house after germinating in the past but almost lost them after flea beetles discovered them and eagerly devoured their leaves. With the help of a household vacuum cleaner we managed to save the baby plants, but we'd like to avoid having to do that again. Thus, they'll grow in the greenhouse for 4 weeks until they're ready to be transplanted outside. Which also means I need to begin ground preparations this coming week. Wow, time flies.