Today's work in the garden revealed a shift. A bitter-sweet shift. Bitter in that springs cool season vegetables are coming to an end and sweet that summers heat loving vegetables are coming in.
Each year when I pick my first basil like I did today I know we're moving into the true summer garden. Basil made it's "pinch the tops off" sized appearance today. The first time you pinch off basil each summer and release that delicious aroma you experience a feeling nothing short of pure Heaven! Oh that smell! If you do not grow basil I highly recommend that you do. If you had to pick one herb to grow basil is THE herb to have in the garden. And there are so many basils besides sweet basil. It's fun to grow a variety of scented basils such as lemon or cinnamon scented basil. I have been noticing the basil growing inconspicuously as I tend to and harvest other plants that have been taking center stage, such as spinach, swiss chard, pak choy, lettuce, cilantro, beets, and snap peas. The spinach, pak choy, radishes, and snap peas have pretty much gone by and I've already cleaned up those spots, removed the plants that went by and threw them into the compost pile, dug in shovel fulls of compost, and replanted with more lettuce seed, cucumber seedlings, and carrot seeds. I put the cukes where the snap peas were so they can climb up the trellis. The lettuce went where the radishes were and the carrots went where the spinach were. I figured I'd trade root for leaf plants and visa-versa. I'm going to cover the spot where the lettuce is with burlap in hopes that I can shade and cool the area a bit. Replanting today was my major goal but I also spent a lot of today mulching with compost. I composted the onions, peppers, and beans heavily. Yesterday I compost/mulched the squashes, corn, and tomatoes heavily. I also gave all my tomato plants a good drink of worm tea.
Very Cool Vermiculite Set Up
Worm tea you ask? Well, my friend Lisa brought me over the best present; an already established vermiculite container complete with healthy red wiggler worms! Thanks Lisa! Vermiculite is the culture of worms. Gardeners raise worms for their castings, aka worm poop, and for the tea it produces. This set up that Lisa gave me is ingenious. In the photo above I don't know if you can tell that there are two kitty litter containers, one right inside the other. The one inside is where the worms are living and there are holes drilled throughout that container. The holes allow air to circulate but also they allow the moisture/water/tea to drain out the bottom. Just drain the liquid, add more water, and you have the best worm tea that plants love! To keep the worms healthy you just feed them kitchen scraps daily. To deter the pesky fruit flies you just bury the kitchen scrapes (veggie and fruit peels, coffee grounds, pasta, bread; no meat or oils...just like regular compost) and put a handful of moist newspaper in. Lisa said you can even cover top of the inside with garden cloth. I'm thinking that means remay floating row cover cloth. It's kind of like a thick cheese cloth. She said tomato plants with flowers on them love this stuff. So I did just what she said and diluted it with some rain water from my rain barrel and watered my tomatoes with it. We'll see.
On a different note, strawberries are just ending and I made several batches of strawberry jam and strawberry butter; yummy! Time to get out the raspberry recipes as raspberries are just starting! And shell peas are coming in too. I'll share some recipes shortly. But in the mean time there is nothing like standing in the garden on a hot sunny day shelling peas one at a time and popping those luscious, sweet little green pearls into your mouth. They are wonderful raw in salads too. Make a special July 4th garden salad with some sliced beets, scallions, peas, and goat cheese on top of some garden greens with a dash of vinaigrette; yummmm!
Finally, blueberries, plums, and cherries are also developing and getting slowly bigger. The plums and blueberries are are still green. To deter birds from eating all our blueberries right as they are ripe and ready to pick I'm going to cover them with some bird netting.
Enjoy your garden and your 4th of July!
Mary
It is now 4 hot days later that I watered my tomato plants with worm castings tea and holy cow; stand back! Now it certainly could be the heat. It could also be that I added another layer of compost around the tomato plants. BUT I have to say that I think it's the worm tea. The plants look so green, larger, and they have some new nice sized tomatoes on them. This is not what they looked like Friday when I watered them. Dang, wish I didn't water a few of the plants with this so I could have a better comparison to see if it's this tea or not. Next time. Again, far from a fair test, but certainly seems to be making a difference. I'm going to make a guess that the worm tea is working.
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