Smaller Turnout - April 21st

Smaller turnout, but a very productive Saturday

Thanks to the few who turned out today, we now have squash in the ground, and we need only 10 more tomato plants to fill up the tomato section of our garden.  Henry Graham gave us a whole flat of tomato plants.

Jerry keeping 'em straight.

Jerry came in early this morning and took on the task of scratcing in some organic fertilizer around the cucumbers and bell peppers, then he took over from Stephanie, Lizzy and Ellie Adelman who had lots of other Saturday commitments for the day.  They planted some of Henry's tomatoes before they had to leave.  Jerry finished the rest.  It was about 30 tomato plants with 5 or 6 different varieties.  Thanks Henry!  The last row of tomatoes is almost filled, and the buckwheat has started to show itself.

We didn't expect the buckwheat to come up very thick on the first planting.  It's a little more sparse than I had hoped, however.  It always improves with each successive planting because it adds nitrogen to the soil and produces better and better dirt for all vegetables to grow in.

Ray and Ann helping it grow.

Where's that other worker bee?

Ray and Ann planted two full rows of crook neck squash seeds, then moved up to the tomato garden and applied organic fertilizer to all of those plants (about 70 in all).

I have been constructing the poles for our pole beans, and I've got one more row to stretch horizontally.   Then we'll run twine up and down for the beans to actually climb.

 The last chore today was watering all the plants and seeds, cleaning up the tools and putting the hose away.  I'm proud to say we are very much on schedule with one more April workday planned for next weekend.  We now have the following plants or seeds in the ground:

• tomatoes
• cucumbers
• peppers
• squash
• buckwheat

The following should be going in on (or just before) May 1st: 

• eggplant
• green beans
• crowder peas 
• Swiss chard 
• basil 

Next weekend I hope the younger folks with the strong backs show up again...stronger than mine anyway.  There are two rows that still need raking up, and one that just needs to be finished.  We still have lots of rocks and clumps that should be cleared out of the isles between the rows and taken to the woods.  If these tasks are finished by this coming Saturday, we will have finished all the hard work of building the garden.  We'll put in a bee-attracting flower garden, put Mr. Scare E. Crow in place, and the balance of the work will be simply maintaining it (until mid summer when we plant our second crop of tomatoes, squash and cucumbers).

Thanks for the hard work, everybody.  The garden is looking so good!