Friday, June 19, 2015

Planted!

Well, almost.  After a host of delays, many weather-related, all 22 raised beds and 8 of the 10 buried pots in our demonstration garden at the Historic Barns Park contain vegetable or pollinator-attracting plants in some form.  The following is a list of the vegetable varieties we're growing this year, bed by bed:

1   - Tomatoes: Amish Paste, Siberian Tiger, African Queen, Golden Jubilee
2   - Tomatoes: SunGold, Sunpeach, Mountain Magic, Cherokee Chocolate
3   - Beans, bush dry: Hutterite Soup
4   - Beans, bush snap: Royalty Purple Pod; and beets: Detroit Dark Red & Lutz Green Leaf
5   - Carrots: St Valery, Muscade, & Rainbow; and turnips: Hakurei & Purple Top White Globe
6   - Beans, pole snap: Fortex & Northeaster; and carrots: Nutri-Red & Bolero
7   - Cabbage: Late Flat Dutch
8   - Peas, shell: mix of Green Arrow & Recruit
9   - Garlic, Spontaneo (planted Oct 2014); and peas, snap, Sugar Sprint
10 - Cabbage: Stonehead
11 - Beans, bush snap: Provider
12 - Cucumbers: Straight Eight; and lettuce, leaf: mix of several, e.g., Black Seeded Simpson, Lolla Rossa
13 - Potatoes: Kennebec
14 - Potatoes: Dark Red Norland
15 & 18 - Flowering plants: penstemon, monarda
16 - Beans, pole dry: Good Mother Stallard
17 - Beans, pole dry: Speckled Cranberry
19 - Onions: Patterson, Bridger
20 - Eggplant: Bride; peppers: Gypsy & Intruder; and cabbage: Late Flat Dutch & Tendersweet
21 - Kale, Red Russian; cabbage turnip: Naone Rosse; and kohlrabi: Delicacy White & Grand Duke
22 - Radish: mix of several, and daikon: Summer Cross
- Also in buried 5-gallon pots -  a mix of ornamental flowers; chives; Greek oregano; garlic chives; parsley; and an heirloom summer savory or ‘Bohnenkraut’
- Beside the bulletin board - sunflowers: Tarahumara White Seeded
- In two wide rows just south of Beds 11 & 12 - buckwheat (mainly to attract pollinating insects)

At this moment, we have two empty buried pots, and we’re hoping some generous Volunteer will find a tasty herb to put in them--then we’ll have our garden fully planted!

We’re always happy to welcome visitors to the garden, including an occasional monarch butterfly. (Well, maybe not the Colorado potato beetles and definitely not the squash bugs--we’ve agreed not to grow squash this year.)  We’ve asked that a good portion of the surrounding meadow not be mowed until late autumn, as it contains numerous common milkweed (Asclepias syriaca) plants and we’re trying to get a couple other locally native Asclepias species started to further support the monarchs and attract pollinating insects. That’s why, as shown in the photo below, our garden is surrounded by mostly “weeds.”  Otherwise, the garden is representative of that one might do safely and at low cost in a sunny back yard--definitely more interesting and productive than lawn grass.