Organic Market Garden Update

Here we are at mid june and things have greened up beautifully since the last garden post. I 'm enjoying the walk each day through the vibrant dappled greens along the path to the berry garden. I'll be putting out the Organic Market Garden sign at the roadside this week. The Salmon River B&B & Restaurant of St Martins has become a regular customer, going thru an ever increasing amount of mixed salad greens and herbs every few days. I mix together several types of mesclun  and oak leaf lettuce, baby beet and arugula leaves, and some baby spinach. The owners tell me that the customers are loving their new healthier menu.

       So far I also have ready swiss chard, a wee bit of broccoli, onion tops, chives, cilantro, sage, tarragon and chervil. The usual villans have shown up with their destructive appetites: brassica and arugula loving flea beetles, slugs and snails.

    Bottomless ice cream buckets with a mesh top are just the best thing for wind and chewing bug protection, and pushed down into the soil, they also foil the cutworms.                  These cauliflower plants are now big and strong enough to withstand the flea beetles so they can lose their buckets  to the tender squash and cucumber transplants. I use a pile of sheer curtains I found at the Re-store as row covers for the arugula and turnip, otherwise there would be nothing left. The hoop houses described in an earlier post have had a succession of crops since  housing the baby chard back in march. The radishes have come and gone, now the hoop beds are sheltering a second planting of arugula and some tender beans.

     Scarlet runner beans are finding their way up the poles. Their blossoms make such a bright splash of color in the midsummer garden, and how the hummingbirds love them. I put the beans through my bean frencher and sell them that way, all thinly sliced and ready to steam gently and enjoy.

      Some of the potatoes planted under mulch are beginning to blossom. I so look forward to the first dinner with new baby potatoes, there's nothing like it!

     Giant Tess, the swamp lady is at her usual haunt by the pond...lazy sod never does anything useful, but demands an all over haircut every few days, Such a high maintenance creature she is.