April 2012

Date:    04/03/12    Time:    10:00 AM

• Removed plastic from solarized area.
• Put tomato cages on some tomato plants in bed I.
• Pulled lettuces from beds D and G.

Date:    04/05/12    Time:    10:00 AM

• Pulled carrots from bed K.
• Replanted bed K with “three sisters” and watered them in with Sea Tea:
• Sweet corn
• Yellow Crookneck squash
• Kentucky Wonder pole beans
• Cut back sage and rosemary in bed A.  Pulled out one big salvia officianalis and put it in the compost bin.
• Drenched a persistant fire ant hill in bed A with Anti-fuego.
• Harvested red oakleaf lettuce from bed K.
• Removed “walls of water” from tomatoes and tomatillo in bed I.
• Built cages from bamboo poles for indeterminate tomatoes in bed I.
• Lost the Reisentraube tomato from bed I.  Can’t tell for sure what killed it but it looks like it might have been a fungus or perhaps a virus.
• Treated onions in row garden with fungicide/pesticide.
• Weeded row garden.

Date:    04/06/12    Time:    2:00 PM

• Watered seeds in bed K.
• It looks as though we are about to lose the Cherokee Purple tomato adjacent to the spot where the Reisentraube tomato died in bed I.  It looks like the Reisentraube did before it died.

Date:    04/10/12    Time:    10:00 AM

• Made a tomato cage from remesh for an indeterminate tomato in bed I.
• Tied up the Purple tomatillo in bed I.  It has a very different posture than the Pineapple tomatillo.  The Purple is upright and looks like an indeterminate tomato plant.  The Pineapple is low-growing and sprawling like a Crookneck squash vine.
• The Malabar spinach has come up in bed I.  it isn’t growing very quickly but all the seeds have come up.  We will have to thin them before long.
• Pulled the peas out of bed L.  They just didn’t make.  Might have planted them too late.  Raised the trellis three feet.  Amended the soil with Revitalizer compost, homemade compost and Ladybug fertilizer.  Planted half the bed with Kentucky Wonder pole beans the other half with Yard Long pole beans,  Replaced most of the ¼-in dripline in this bed.
• Pulled the fennel and all the root and leaf crops from bed B.
• Pulled all but one dill plant and all winter veggies from bed F.
• Harvested all root crops from beds C and G.
• Planted Contender and Yellow Wax bush beans in bed G.
• Weeded beds D and H and put shade cover on east side of bed H in preparation for transplanting some fairly large yellow squash plants.

Date;    04/13/12

• Transplanted some yellow squash in bed H from interior of bed to east end.
• Put powdered BT on Pineapple tomatillo in bed I because of insect damage.

Date:    04/17/12    Time:    10:00

• Lost a fairly mature California Wonder bell pepper plant in bed I.  It broke off at the soil line.  It looks as though it may have rotted and strong winds over the weekend may have blown it over.
• Made a cage out of remesh and put it around an indeterminate tomato in bed I.
• Pulled half the Tendergreen mustard, all of the parsnips and some onions from bed M.  The parsnips were planted in the open pockets in the concrete blocks around the edge of this bed.  There was no irrigation to that space.  The parsnips produced tops but the roots were real short.  Oh well.  That experiment didn’t work out.
• Most of the squash and cukes that were planted in bed M have died.  Replanted with the following:
• Black Beauty zucchini
• Early Butternut squash
• Delicata squash
• Some variety of patty pan squash
• Wax bush beans
• French Breakfast radishes
• Easter Egg radishes
• There is a bad fire ant problem in bed M.  They are building hills under the flat concrete blocks that we use as seats in this disability-enabled bed.  Drenched them with Anti-fuego, which seems to work better for treating ants in the beds than either spinosad bait or orange oil drench.
• Planted malabar spinach at east end of bed M.
• Weeded row garden and removed row cover from half of the tomato cages.  The tomato plants in the row garden are not as robust as those in raised bed I and we are trying to see if the problem is caused by reduced light due to the row cover wrapped around the cages.
• Made accurate measurements of all the beds, the distances between them and the distances to nearby trees in order to create an accurate map of the current demo garden, including the rose garden, so that the garden expansion workgroup will have a baseline to work from.
• Harvested strawberries from bed L.
• The beans have sprouted in bed L.
• The corn, beans and squash have sprouted in bed K.

Date:    04/24/12    Time:    10:00 AM

• Tied up tomatoes in bed I.
• Planted the Lemon Cucumbers, Heirloom Watermelon radishes and the following bush beans in bed M:
• Dragon’s Tongue
• Royal Burgundy
• Black Wax
• Planted two gray Santolinas in the un-irrigated concrete block pockets in bed M.
• Planted Yellow Crookneck squash in bed B.
• Amended bed C and planted Gold Rush Wax bush beans and Armenian cucumbers.