Jackie Smith
Posts 1
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Both garden designs (First Timers and Salad Lovers) were planted at the teaching garden on May 15. We made a few slight adjustments to the designs to better display the gardens for our visitors, but for the most part planting went well and everything germinated and grew as expected. We attempted to upload photos in June and July, but they don't seem to go through, so we'll skip photos this time around.
The First Timer's Garden has produced a modest amount of zucchini and no ripe peppers to date. We have automated irrigation in this part of the garden, and moisture levels are too high for these veggies to produce well. The remaining varieties love it, though! The beets are ready to pull, but we've kept them in place for another week or so (big event coming up this week with lots of visitors). The spinach bolted on July 13, but the plants on either side had filled the space, so it wasn't replanted. Bush beans are blooming again after a pause for the extreme heat of the past few weeks. We replaced the tomatoes in the plan with six paste types. These tomatoes were planted 1 foot apart, and pruned to single leaders on spiral stakes. As of this writing, the six tomato plants have produced a total of 36 tomatoes.
The Salad Lover's Garden is also producing great tomatoes on the three determinate plants (2 Floralina, 1 Golden Girl). The tomatoes in this garden are supported by small tomato cages, as are the peppers. The cucumbers are trellised on a six-foot wire trellis. The vines need a little coaxing to climb, but the fruit is straight, blemish-free, and plentiful. We sowed about four feet using Bush Champion seed, and set out one plant of Tasty Green. The Tasty Green plant works better on the trellis, and the fruit is longer. But both are doing very well. Our lettuce bolted on July 20, and was pulled and replanted with another lettuce on July 22 for our fall salads. Both Nasturtium leaves and blossoms have been clipped since mid-July to add a little bite to salads, along with snippings from the oregano, basil, and marjoram. None of our gardeners enjoy the flavor of mountain mint, but the plants are attractive in the garden.
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