I am kind of losing track of days and nights. Taking the weekend off to run away up north last weekend meant I had about 20 hours to try to make up in regards to what is on my plate to get done. I did not get it all done, but the gardens are looking ok. There are some peripherals that are not completed.
One of those is cherries. I have to finish picking them and then need to process them. Something I have never done before. We have a lot. I picked half of one tree, and I have a few gallons picked. Means I am about 1/6 of the way through that task.
I got to the Ness farm early in the week and got it mowed. Patti went out a few afternoons and got the weeding of the root crops finished there.
I retilled and prepped spots for plantings for fall crops there, and will have to get back there next week to get those planted.
I thought I would weed the potatoes. Very quickly I found that I need to just let that go. First weed I pulled ganked out a whole potato plant. The tubers seem none the worse for wear, so I guess that I just have to wait for the plant tops to die off and then will dig them. I have a pound of new baby potatoes. If this is indicative of how the other 129 plants there are doing, even with weeds, it will be a nice crop at this location. Variety there is Red Cloud.
The Painted Mountain flour corn there is tasseling already, but a bit stunted. Will have to wait and see how cob set and size is. If past years are a good measure, this will be mature and dried down by August.
The whole family spent a lot of time at the Adickes farm this week making sure it is cleaned up nicely because they are hosting a health and wellness open house/seminar next weekend. Me and the girls will be there for garden tours and to make sure that the gardens are not too severely molested by kids and other guests.
Cabbage moths are causing some damage in the kale and cabbage, but plants are weathering it ok.
Saw a lot of sunsets there this week.
The Three Sisters planting experiment is still going along swimmingly. Biggest hills are close to 5 feet high, some of the beans are starting to twine, and the corn should be well enough along that it is not going to get dragged down.
The long hill Katrina and I made and planted with squash, I have been scavenging plants out of in order to thin it out a bit, and fill in hills where I had poor early germination. By the end of the week, I had moved about 20 plants to the Three Sisters plot and the plants handled the transplanting well enough. Still working on getting all of those hills mulched in with composted manure.
Had a great moon rise there one evening. Forgetting, off-hand, just which evening it was.
Doing winter radishes for the first time. The Japanese Minowase went in the spot I had prepped for sweet potato slips, as they never showed up. The mound should work well for them as the roots are supposed to become quite long and the ground there should be fairly easy for them to penetrate.
Those are Blue Lake green bean seeds. Initially I had thought the 140+ feet of beans I had put in would be enough, but the last two weeks I have had a few requests for real quantity from more people interested in putting up food for themselves this year. Plenty of time yet for bean pods to get to green maturity, so put in another 60 feet of row.
All of the tomatoes, TPS potatoes, peppers, and tobacco plants are weeded, fed, watered and hilled. Still need to do cages for the tomato plants.
Katrina and I spent a lot of time hauling composted manure into the garden for mulching plants and tilling into rows for late plantings of fall crops. Their “gator” is nice tool with a hydraulic dump bed. I would bet we got a dozen full loads into the garden.
Last thing we did on Saturday night was drop in 47 bell pepper plants. Not a bad week of work.
