Farm School Summer Series Week Six

The summer is half over,
but Farm School is still going strong.

We're preparing for the fall garden.

Time to get to work.

The garden has slowed down quite a bit.

Although we've been blessed with an abundance of rain,

the heat, humidity and bugs have been destructive to summer crops.

Last week I looked for leaf rollers on the leafier crops.

This week, these cutworms were found under 

the plastic pot liners of some plants.

Sneaky little devils, they are.

This is the "slow-bolt" cilantro that was planted a few weeks ago.

We were disappointed that it didn't perform as we had hoped.

All but one plant bolted within 2 months.

Some of the okra has been pulled out,

due to its poor performance.

Even the cherry tomatoes are withering with the heat.

They were mighty good while they lasted!

We've had an unusual amount of rain the last few weeks.

You can see here that this beet seedling 

was all but pummeled to death.

We simply planted more.

Lynn's philosophy is that if something doesn't grow 

the way he expects, he just keeps on trying.

"Throw more seed on it and see what happens."

Why not?

Some of the eggplant is looking good,

although Lynn is not sure it is out of the woods just yet.

The parsley is amazing...

See anything interesting here?

We came home with about 30 of these babies.

I put them on Craig's List to see if other families might want to enjoy

the fabulous opportunity to witness the metamorphosis.

I got some takers and it gave me a great idea

that I will share at a later date.

Some of the newly-sown seeds are coming right along.

When asked why he direct sows some plants and uses flats for others,

Lynn said it's a matter of fragility.

Tomatoes especially are susceptible to a myriad of problems,

and must be handled with the utmost of care.

They are always started in trays.

Other crops, like eggplant, 

are sometimes direct sown as an experiment

to see if they can flourish without the extra step of seed starting.

Still others, like beans and peas, 

are always directly placed in their final growing spot.

I had time to clean up a few pots containing peppers.

The plastic disks keep most weeds at bay,

so the job goes quickly.

 

Skinks scatter through the aisles of pots playing tag.

Lynn spotted this new growth on one of their banana trees.

A fresh bunch like this will soon be emerging from the new shoot.

There was some fill work being done on the property.

Although things are slowing down with regard to harvesting,
the planning and sowing stages are revving up.
Won't be long before we are steeped in seed trays.

Until we meet up again...


The Farm School posts begin here.









Little Homestead on the Hill