Wow. What a week so far! When the 5 summer apprentices arrived on Sunday evening, I gave them a "Garden Pep Talk." I described how this is our make-or-break turn-the-corner week of the summer. There are so many things that needed to be done this week, and all of them have an impact on the how the rest of the summer will go. I told them how this is the week when either the weeds take over or the plants take off. I explained that there is a mountain of planting that did not get done last week when there was so much rain - and now we have two weeks worth of planting to do.
So the first morning we took half of the garden by the farmhouse and weeded every bed. What a change! Then we wheel-hoed the onion rows (we can still see them - which is good). I was able to drive the cultivating tractor for hours on Monday afternoon and kill most of the weeds on either side of the single-row crops (corn, dry beans, sunflowers, squash, and potatoes). Laura and I also tied up one whole row of tomatoes - pounding stakes and weaving the tomatoes up so that they set their fruit above the ground. That all was a huge change in just a few hours.
Then on Tuesday morning we weeded most of the other side of the garden. The beets were rescued and some of the carrots. In the afternoon Laura and got a start on tilling between the pumpkin rows and she made progress on the second row of field tomatoes. In the evening we went to the Pizza Farm and enjoyed some farm-fresh pizza. Yum.
Wednesday morning found us planting, planting, planting. We planted 50 cucumber plants, a 100 scallion bunches, 200 parsley plants, 150 basil plants, 2400 sweet corn plants, 2 rows of green beans, 5 rows of lettuce mix, cilantro and dill. Wow. In the heat! Then in the afternoon Laura finished the second row of toms, and she and I watered all of the sweet corn in.
Tomorrow we finish rescuing the pumpkins and onions, tie up tomatoes in the hoophouse and install a fence for the cucumbers to vine up. Maybe we will rescue a few more carrots.
Shwhew!
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