We’re smack in the middle of the garden season now! We’ve gotten past the “salad days” when we
eat salad just about every day because lettuce, spinach and radishes are the
only harvestable vegetables. Now we have
enough variety that we can eat out of the garden every night for supper,
without having the same vegetable two days in a row. But we haven’t yet started the canning and
freezing frenzy that occurs when the garden is at is fullest production. ‘Tis the season of mid-season
maintenance. There’s the weeding, of
course. And more weeding. And whining about weeding. But wait, there’s more!
Cocooning The Cauliflower: As soon as a head of cauliflower starts to form (about 1-2” in diameter), we gather the outer leaves and tie them together above the head, creating a little cauliflower cocoon. We do this because when the sun hits the developing cauliflower, it starts turning purple or green or some other color we don’t care to see on our cauliflower. Using the leaves to shade the delicate florets keeps them nice and pasty white, like Michelle’s legs in March.
Thinning the Beets: Beets are grown from compound seeds, which
means that those Grape-Nuts-cereal-looking seeds that we plant are actually a
conglomeration of up to 6 individual beet seeds. If all those mini-seeds actually germinate,
the baby beets are duking it out for room to grow. We end up having to sacrifice a certain
percentage of the plants, plucking them from the row to make sure the remaining
ones have ample space. Then throughout
the summer, we strategically pick beets from thicker clumps first, to keep
thinning the rows as the beets get bigger and need more room to spread out. We thin carrots and onions this way, too –
we intentionally plant them thickly because as we pick and eat young tender onions & carrots, it naturally allows nearby plants to
spread out and reach their “full potential.”
Staking and Suckering
The Tomatoes: We staked the tomatoes
a while ago, using baling twine to tie them to metal stakes so they grow tall
& straight and the sun can get to all the tomatoes. Now we periodically “sucker” them. Suckers are tiny branches that start growing
in the crotch of two larger branches of the tomato plant. If we let the suckers continue to develop,
they take valuable tomato-growing energy away from the rest of the plant. So we say, “I’m gonna get you, Sucka!” and
pinch them off. We saw our first red
tomato today, so it must be working!