In Balance With Nature....

Saturday, June 12, 2010

Getting HOT!

Feels like summer came early this year. Its been in the 80's-90's for a while now and the plants are loving it.

Potatoes are doing great, beans, zucchini and yellow squash are huge and we have 4 in long zuchinni's already.
Peppers and tomatoes are getting bigger and the Basil is growing FAST! We planted sweet basil and opal basil this year and it is a gorgeous purple color.

We learned something new about garlic. When the bulb is forming a "curly shoot" will come up between the leaves with a flower bud in the middle. This is a "Garlic Scape" in other countries this is actually considered a delicacy but they are typically thrown away in the U.S.
By cutting the scape you allow more energy to focus on the growing glove underground and the scape is a wonderful early garlic "chive".

We already have some pests in the garden causing trouble. We have some potato beetles and bean beetles nibbling on pretty much everything. We spay an organic mixture that makes the bugs stop chewing and therefore stop eating. Doesn't work as quickly as pesticides but we dont want all that poison on our food either so we just have to stay on top of the organic spray every few days. Tonight we added some calcium and seaweed fertilizer to everything so it will get rained in tomorrow.
Definitely keeping busy between work and the garden.
Cant wait to eat it!