7/15-7/19
Tasks:
fixed up wash station by house
watered zones daily
watered raised beds daily
harvested: squash, cucumbers, potatoes, hard-neck garlic
Pickled: cucumbers, green beans
Froze: beets
Built drying frame for onions out of compost bin lids
Sprayed insecticidal soap on Japanese beetles
bought sprinkler
At Farm:
tilled hoop house spot
watered: trees, melons/gourds/pumpkins, strawberries, vines, blackberries
weeded, composted, mulched and watered again-trees, vines, blackberries
sprayed the trees with sulfur mixture
Notes:
Pickles: We are using the final mixture given to us in last year’s log: 8-8-1, water vinegar, salt (or 1c water, 1c vinegar 1/8c salt). The spices are slightly varied but for the most part we’ve also followed what was in the log last year. We tend to find that spices measurements from other books are pretty bland/boring for our tastes here!
Farm Trees: The trees were moved to our top priority when we saw the poor state they were in this week. They were lacking water and being attacked by Japanese beetles and cedar rust. We feel it was a combination of being overwhelmed with other work, not having, proper resources, and just plain neglect on our part which have the trees a tough start.
It has been especially difficult to deal with the trees for the summer without a proper water source. This week we began using 8 drip buckets—former cat litter containers (5 gallons) with 3 holes in the bottom. This is helpful so the trees are getting the right amount of water slowly sinking to their roots, but it’s difficult to haul 5 gallon jugs of water everywhere, and it is especially inconvenient because our water source at the farm does not hold enough gallons for all the mini-orchard, and especially not all the plants that need to be watered. It’s a slow, frustrating process.
We’re hoping that a well with an electric pump, or a high water tower will allows us to connect drip tape to a spigot and allow us to easily give the trees the proper care they require once the school year is started.
Garlic: We harvested one group of the hard-neck and still have one row to go. As of right now there are 159 of the hard-neck variety, 40 of which we are saving for seed