Tentative Garden Blessing Date

Hello! Fr. Walter has on his calendar to bless the garden on Tuesday, June 22nd at 6pm. It was confirmed by his secretary but he's been out of town and may decide to change it. Stay tuned for confirmed plans and hopefully everyone can make it!

Garden Update

Posting for MB:

"Brennan, Aidan, and I spent some time in the garden last night.

The Good News:
The tomatoes, cucumbers, radishes, basil seedlings, cilantro seedlings, green onions, squash, zucchini, beans, peppers, zinnias, the three carrots and six lettuce seedlings that came up are all doing great!

The Bad News:
The other 97 carrot and 94 lettuce seedlings.

On the Fence:
Eggplants, strawberries (although I saw one new bloom!), broccoli (is it too late for these guys to produce adequately?)

We have more carrot and lettuce seeds that we can plant. Need to hoe out the non-producing area and reseed.

What would be cool to do but would like some men-help: Clear out the area behind St. Francis all the way to the fence. Plant goliath sunflowers & smaller flowers there in an L around the corner area. To the right of that, plant pumpkins to be ready in the fall. I have all the seeds for this, just need it cleared.

Go Happy Gardeners, Go!"

Red plastic

Hi all, you'll notice next time you're at the garden that our two tomato plants have red plastic around them. This is something my mom gave me and swears by for her tomato plants the last couple seasons. I'm not sure about the science behind it, but it supposedly helps produce higher yields. Anyway, I have a some left over, probably enough to go around 2-4 more tomato plants. If anyone would like to try some, just say so, and I'll leave the extra at the garden next time I go. Just didn't want anyone to think it was trash.

Weed Control

I've seen mention of using straw as mulch to keep down the weeds. There are potential problems with that. Straw usually contains seed of whatever plant from which it is made, generally some type of grass. Pine straw is fairly acidic, which can be neutralized, but that creates more work. Well aged compost is the best mulch, and newspaper works well, too. Here are some tips for keeping the weeds in check.

I was at the garden about 6:30 last night, and it was such a respite after a long day at the hospital. Friendly kitty came by for a visit--I've seen him chasing a squirrel out of the garden before, so I welcome his presence!

Garden Evenings

I was lucky enough to go out to the garden alone tonight to check on things and have a few moments of peace after a long week alone with kids (thanks Mom!). I've decided 5:30 pm is my new favorite time in the garden. The sun has gone down just a bit and the world looks and feels just perfect. We've had some nice rain this week so I'm not sure about anyone else, but I haven't had to water.

Things are starting to perk up, especially the tomatoes and squash. And, we have a bitty-baby broccoli emerging from the leaves! Whoohoo!

The strawberry transplants are looking a little weak, perhaps the transfer was too much for them or perhaps we're getting past the season for them, I hope they'll make it a little longer. The beans and radish seeds are growing nicely and many of the basil and lettuce seeds are poking though. It's kind of hard to tell how the carrot seeds are doing as we are in need of some serious weeding. Hopefully we can tell as they get a little bigger. I was able to weed a bit around the basil and radishes but a cute kitty friend kept laying down right where I was trying to weed...so I gave in and played with him instead.

Maybe we can get a group of us to have a weeding party soon. I like the idea of straw too as that will kill off many of these weeds but we need the seedlings to get a bit bigger still.

We're in the process of arranging with Fr. Walter to come to the blessing, so we'll keep you posted. Looking forward to more evenings in the garden soon.

a morning in the garden

My family went to the garden. All of the plants were growing even ours! This is a pitcher of broccoli that I took with my mom's camera. There is also anther garden next to ours it is my friend's garden named  Diana.  Next  we  picked mint leaves . Before that  my  mom  said  Mary B. we have to   get  strawberry seeds for are garden,  okay i said  lets go!!!!!!!!

Waterwise

Some tips from the old pros of old pros on water wise gardening. Maybe we could put our heads together about a rain barrel system?

Bad straw and an excuse to be social

So . . . the straw in the woods turned out to be much more decomposed than I expected. (From the kitchen window it looked so good, right?) Sorry. Anyway, I am hunting new straw, which is apparently tough to find this time of year unless you know a farmer, which I don't. (Except my fellow community gardners of course.) My mom tends to have ins on things like this, and she's coming up on Saturday, so I'm hoping she may be able to hook us up. To be continued . . .

On another subject, I'd like to propose a little early-evening gathering sometime soon to toast in the gardening season together - and hopefully convince someone to do a blessing for our garden. I asked BB about this, and she had someone in mind we could ask to come do the blessing (one of the deans, I think?). I was thinking there would be room to spread out a picnic blanket or two in the grass in front of the gate, and maybe we could share some some cheese and crackers and perhaps some champagne and sparkling apple juice! A little garden-christening happy hour of sorts. We'd be happy to bring all the goodies. I was thinking maybe sometime next week or weekend. Would we all be here?

Straw is Great!

Ruth, thanks for the offer. We would love to use the straw for the strawberry plants. With their fruit directly on the ground, they are much more likely to rot.

We are thinking of putting some melons in behind St. Francis. They'll need lots of space to spread.

I believe Cortney's out of town for a couple of days. That's her sage...