We had another fabulous day in the garden! We had a good turnout and got a bunch of plants in the ground. We planted tomatoes, sunflowers, calendula, and cilantro.
It was a good day for planting. It was also a good day for harvesting. Below is a photo of Toni and Ethan harvesting one of out looooong anticipated cabbage. We planted these cabbage back in the fall and for a possible variety of reasons they never really thrived. They looked like they were going to go to seed and not get much bigger so we decided to harvest one of them. I'll post an update on the others next week.
It was one tough cabbage! My snips are also very loved, and so are very dull. I have not yet mastered the skill of blade sharpening. My efforts have the disappointing effect of making the blade more dull rather than sharp.
Regardless, Ethan met with success and held up his hard earned trophy- a tasty (hopefully) naturally grown, community nurtured head of cabbage. Good job Ethan!
Here is one our community supporters - Stefan Hartmann, owner of Black River Organic Farm. Stefan has helped all of the gardens I am involved with -- CSCG, Tidal Creek Community Garden and The New Hanover High School Garden-- with an abundance of seedlings. Not only did he bring by plants on Sunday, but also a parasite that preys on aphids that was hitchhiking with the plants!
Thanks Stefan!
That jug of brown water in the right hand picture is a gallon of compost tea available at Progressive Gardens located on Oleander Drive. Bring your own container and get a free gallon of this probiotic garden tea. It helps to replenish the microorganism populations in the soil. The microorganisms are beneficial to plants and soil health in many ways.
Chris is working hard!
Tom and Angelica were kept busy planting tomatoes. We planted several heirloom varieties that even have exotic names. I can't wait to see what "purple zebra" looks like. Other on the roster include pink beauties, a white tomato, black grape and some others whose names I will get up soon.
Here are a few shots of the garden, late afternoon on Sunday.
Angelica took these two, I couldn't decide which one I liked better. That is mullein in the foreground with broccoli and collards gone to seed in the background and catnip peeking in from the left hand side.
This is Vitex, also known as Chaste Tree. This is a very fast growing shrub I am excited to have for it's medicinal properties and also because it provides a nice filtered shade for some of the herbs. I expect it to grow fast enough to be able to shade the herb garden this year.
The much anticipated asparagus has sprouted! We have four of ten crowns coming up! It's hard to see in this picture, but the asparagus is the green plant with a ring of darker soil (compost) around it. As it grows we will fill in the trench. There won't be any to harvest for a couple of years, but the beginning looks promising!
We did have one casualty - a snapped stem, so please be careful not to walk in the trench! I hope that crown will send up more spears, like the other three plants are doing.
Some more pictures of the garden. Enjoy!
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