Next Week's Garden Time

Next week's big gardening days are Monday, 8/22, 8 am to noon, Friday, 8/26, 8 am to noon and Saturday, 8/27 9 am to 10 am.

On Monday we will plant parsnips in B1 and continue work on the compost pile that Bill Sanford started for us.

On Friday we will prep beds and plant as much buckwheat as we can (up to 6 beds).  The buckwheat will flower in 4 to 6 weeks and provide much needed fall forage for our bees.  They will also fix nitrogen for the next batch of crops we plant.  Prepping beds for the buckwheat will be much easier than prepping beds for veggies as we can skip the careful pre weeding, amending the soil and edging the beds to keep out the root weeds.  All we have to do is get rid of the larger weeds, loosen the top layer of soil, scatter the buckwheat and water.  The buckwheat will sprout shortly and begin to shade and crowd out any smaller weeds fairly quickly.

On Saturday I will be sprinkling the jauche from the blue barrel at the back of the garden over the entire garden.  The jauche is a fermented tea made from wiregrass and mugwort, two of our most aggressive weeds that spread via their root systems.  Theoretically regular sprinkling of the jauche at the right time will cause those weeds to weaken over time and spread less easily.  It could take as many as three years before we see a noticeable change.   Stay tuned to find out if it works!  While this work day is short, I could still use some help as the jauche is too full of particulate matter to be strained into the backpack sprayer so it must be hand sprinkled over the entire garden.  This is one of those times when many hands make much lighter work.  Sprinkling plants in the morning sunlight is a pleasant way to spend an hour when you have company.  Children especially seem to enjoy the work.  Come join me if you can!

Don't forget that there is also one more work day this week, Saturday, 8/20 from 8 am to noon.

Hope to see you in the garden!