garden news-veggies are on the way

GARDEN NEWS-VEGGIES ON THE WAY

that is a zucchini squash that was planted last spring
mr hudson picked it this fall 
soon in a month we will plant more zucchini squash in the community garden so he maybe can harvest more big squash like this one
now
we just need to trick him to eat it
he does pull sweet peas off the vine or tomatoes or lettuce and eats them on the spot


we must have about 20 different citrus trees in our orchard
most of it is all donated to food kitchens or shelters or other groups in need of food
here are about 20 containers of various citruses that were harvested recently 


we have over 20 beds that are about 30 feet long that we plant with veggies to donate
these beds are about 3 ft wide
here is a bed before we prep it for planting
that big pile is compost that we made ourselves from shredded veggie plants citrus trimmings tree trimmings etc and from veggie scraps from a nearby food kitchen

this bed was a bed of lettuce that we have harvested over several weeks
all of it has been donated
in this bed we will add this layer of compost plus an organic fertilizer
this will be forked in with a broadfork and raked into a nice 3 ft bed
three driplines will be placed
we have more lettuce growing in our greenhouse that will be planted there soon

those log looking things are banana trees that will be used to edge this bed since it is on a slight slope
this will keep the soil from washing away with the next rains
it also provides a nice border to keep traffic off this bed


this a bed of about 300 leeks we planted last week
if you enlarge this picture you can see the green tops poking from the ground
we buried them about 6 inches so we can get a good long white stalk when its harvested
leeks after a month in the ground can be harvested any time
we usually wait till they get bigger than harvest them gradually over time
that black line is a drip tape with holes every 6 inches that emit about 1/2 gallon an hour
how often we water is determined by how moist the soil is
we use a water meter to measure the soil moisture level
right now the drippers are turned off since we have had so much rain in the last month


this is our row of onions
there are about 300 of them planted an inch deep and 6 inches apart
these are bulb onions called 1015s super sweet and texas early white from dixondale farms
these should be ready for harvest in may or later  


we have about 60 broccoli plants in the garden
this one has been allowed to go to flower
if you look on the bottom middle flower you can see a bee getting pollen nad nectar
you can enlarge the picture to see her at work
worker bees are all female
this head of broccoli was covered with bees
i could hear them when i got close
our hives arent far away so these bees dont have far to travel


this is one of our beds of celery
we have about 60 plus plants
a lot of these will be donated to the organic soup kitchen since they use them in most of their soup recipes

this week we start planting some of our early tomatoes for spring plantings then we will proceed over the next two months to plant all our seeds for our spring garden and also plants for our big veggie spring sale which is a big fundraiser for the garden

this all keeps the volunteers busy 
we are like those bees on our volunteer day
the garden has become a safe place to be in this pandemic since we can work all spread out

if you dont garden yet you should try to garden this year
its good for your soul

we have hired a new garden manager
so
i am demoted to volunteer assistant garden manager
i look forward to teaching what i know and reaping what i sow 

the organicgreen doctor