A calmer day

So after the drama (and trauma!) of yesterday, today was much more benign. I also had an after lunch nap in the VW…very civilized 🙂

The zucchini are coming out in their first flowers! All the flowers so far are male, so they will not grow into fruit (zucchini) but they are good for battering and frying. However, I will likey just leave them on the plants b/c they look pretty and it gives the bees something to eat.

Fava bean

Before...

...and after

Fava beans are so pretty! They’re pretty coming out of the ground and they are pretty when they flower. I’m a fava bean fan. They are delicious. I didn’t put near enough in…next year I’ll make up for that error. Favas are the first protein rich food from the garden each year as unlike other beans you can sow them in the cool weather. In fact, they don’t like the hot weather, prefering the cooler temps of Spring and Autumn. So here is a new fava seedling which has such a lovely pattern to it, I think.

More weeding on the carrot/scallion/onion/beet/Swiss chard front. Weeding carrots takes hours and hours. It’s not hard work really, just time consuming, monotonous, and you have to keep your wits about you while daydreaming so that you don’t accidentally weed a tiny carrot or scallion in the weeds! It’s a good exercise for ‘living in the moment’. Here is a before and after shot. See if you can spot the food!

Under cover broccoli and lettuce

I took a photo under the row cover the other day of the broccoli. I think it’s doing alright. Nothing to measure it against really. There’s some lettuce in there too.

Why cover the broccoli? Well, flea beetles first and foremost. The following photos show the damage those little buggers did to my broccoli last year in the Fall.

Flea beetle damage on broccoli Fall 2008

Everyone had the same problem…as soon as the farmers cut their canola, all the flea beetles migrated, en masse, to the nearest organic brassica section for a smorgasboard. Org growers in St. Francois, St. Norbert  and the

Flea beetle damage on the Experimental Farm's Chinese cabbages, 2008

Experimental Farm reported massive damage on the same day as me. Of course, if we grew with chemical pesticides, we would just spray them. I have heard that conventional farmers spray their broccoli a few times per week during the peak flea beetle seasons. Kinda scary if it’s true, which I think it is as I got it from a reliable source who’s ‘in the know’.

Second thing we have to protect the brassicas from (Brassicas include: cauliflower, broccoli, kale, radish, Chinese greens, cabbage, etc.) are the white butterflies. These are the gals who lay their eggs on the brassicas and their larvae stage, the green worm stage, is the worst. They eat like mad and leave their green poop behind everywhere, damaging your plants big-time. So far I’ve only seen a few white butterflies around. I’m trying kelp this year as the lady who sold it to me said that the butterflies would come, but they won’t land and lay their eggs. She also said putting some meal in with the potato seed will keep away the Colorado potato beetle. That would be a major miracle. We’ll see!

The weather the past few days has been a bit wacko. Yesterday we had a severe thunderstorm watch out all day and a 70% chance of rain and not a drop of water fell from the sky…then again, no hail or damaging winds either thank goodness. Today, another day of 60% POP and it rained for about 4 mins. But, those 4 minutes it rained a beautiful gentle rain, as though someone had turned on the tap and was using one of those super duper expensive greenhouse plant misters. Another hour or so of that rain would have been fantastic. So, instead I irrigated b/c it’s been so, so hot lately. The sky has been a canvas too with clouds of white, grey, black and everything inbetween. Last night I had to make a flying trip back to the garden (forgot the camera out there…outside) and the lightning show over the Lake was like nothing else I’d seen before. Looked like photos of the arteries in one’s eye. Spectacular. Unfortunately, I didn’t get a photo of it, but here’s one last photo of a scary stormy sky that was more bark than bite since it produced nothing! (You can also see the mess of weeds on the ‘other’ acre at the bottom of the photo.)

Why cover the broccoli? Well, flea beetles first and foremost

Lovely carrots

Today I weeded the carrots and scallions…tedious work, but a nice change from the heavier work of digging Canada thistle or preparing beds, or transplanting seedling…hard on the upper back/shoulders I find.

Delicate carrot seedlings

I have another couple rows of carrots to weed, guess my little fingers will come in handy. I actually find it quite meditative. And I feel like I’m liberating those tiny seedlings from the overbearing wild mustard, those bad mustard plants blocking out the sun!

I noticed that germination was quite clumpy which is always a downer. At first I thought the seeder had been acting up on seeding day, but then I started thinking maybe it has more to do with where the emitters are on the drip tape. So I gave them all a nice drink after their weeding with the watering can…we’ll see if any more decide to pop out!

The farmer I rent my land from sent over one of his hired hands (wish I had one of them!) to rototill in the massive amount of weeds that have grown in the acre I am not using. It was a mess. I was planning to take a photo, but the rechargeable batteries are acting up, so often they are dead when I go to use the camera…what’s the sense of rechargeables if you have to throw them out?…I know, I know…anyway, that acre was a very bad mess of dandelions going to seed, grass, quack, Canada thistle, you name it, it was there. Now it is black-ish waiting for alfalfa seed which hopefully I can get in tomorrow as it’s supposed to rain then too.

Phew…it was a hot one today!