GANG garden growing, July 13, 2011

This morning I went out into the cool grey morning and took some shots of the GANG garden now, after two weeks of heat and a bit of rain. Whew! The cob oven is no longer visible. Instead, corn, squash, chard, beans, berries, onions, kale, broccoli, greens, beets, cabbage, herbs, radishes, okra, peppers, tomatoes (finally greening), basil basil basil . . .

Four or five of us meet on Thursday evenings for a workparty. Jill brings her daughter Ceclia, who calls it a “magic garden.” Her job is to keep clearing out lotuses from the edge of the pond so that the fishies will swim over to check her out. They do! She’s delighted.

She delights us with her presence.

The pond, with its fish and frogs, adds immeasurably to the feeling of tranquility in the garden. It also helps me as I continue to move through the deep grief attending the loss of my soul companion, Emma, only one week ago.

Chard (actually planted fall 2010):

Squash blossom: still don’t have that many zucchinis. Surprised. Huge, prolific greenery. Too much nitrogen?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This year, we’re growing more flowers, for the bees, and for their profligate beauty. Here’s hollyhocks.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We dragged one of my son Colin’s Garden Towers out into the garden and planted it with seedlings less than two weeks ago. With worm composting down the center tube, it really cooks. Incredibly fast growth. Here’s the website. He has yet to widely publicize it, but will soon. 50 plants in one recycled food-grade 55-gallon drum . . . Yum.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now, here’s a silly story that shows my own learning curve.

I was out watering one morning, when I noticed that there were hundreds of little tiny long white things on the squash leaves. (Here’s a photo from today, though not nearly as many on the leaves.)

Freaked, thinking it some kind of pest, I washed off every leaf. Then I noticed there were thousands of these things at the tops of some of the corn stalks. Yeeks! Did whatever this pest is infest the corn too?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So I went inside and googled: “tiny long white thingies and corn” and of course, learned that this is the corn pollen! And that it drops off suddenly, usually mid-morning or late afternoon, to fertilize itself. Some of course, landed on the squash as well.

Somebody said that they didn’t think we had enough corn plants growing to actually get any corn. But she was wrong. There are at least 30 ears growing already. Question: is this ear of corn (leaning, off to the right) ready? I guess I’d better google to find out.