Saturday, May 17, 2014

Another busy and productive workday. We harvested the spinach which was getting closer to bolting and going to seed. A clear sign of this can be seen as the spinach leaves take on a more pointed shape. Buttercrunch lettuce, arugula, radishes, and kale were also harvested. We were able to make our first contribution of the year to Our Daily Bread and appreciate Maria delivering the food to them. 
We began planting summer crops including pepper plants, eggplants, zucchini, basil, Early Girl and Celebrity and Roma tomatoes, heat tolerant lettuce, and Patti Pan squash.  Sulphur was sprinkled in each hole prior to planting the pepper and tomato plants to increase the soil acidity for best results. 
Many thanks to Larry and Vicki for driving out to Papa John's (aka Schillinger's Farm) in Severn, MD this week to purchase our summer-harvest plants at wholesale prices.  It's another reason why our expenses remain so low.
Thanks also to our garden planners, Jane, Kathy, Laura, Roberta, and Phoebe, for helping to make order from chaos. It's a challenge to design the placement of the crops to maximize the yield for 59 households and they continue to work on it weekly, adapting to both the health of the plants and ever-changing harvest schedules, as well as plant availability. 
And more thanks to Robin who has created a clever design for beautiful signs for all the crops that she has hand-made.