Week 5

In the Bag
Baby Turnips (purple top)
Green Onions (cippolini)
Broccoli (di cicco)
Lettuce (red sails)
Chard (bright lights)
Dill (bouquet)
Snap Peas (cascadia)
Strawberries (seascape)

In the Garden
This June moon brings a frenzy of work in the fields. A couple inches of rain and a week of 8o degrees, everything is growing fast. Seed beds need to be thinned, and more seeds need to be sown. Weeds need to chopped down so they don't smother out our crops. We let them grow for a while, even eat some occasionally, young amaranth and lambs quarters are tasty, but when they start competing too much we have to give a hand to the broccoli and cabbage. Maintaining a balance in the garden. The flow of air, sunlight, moisture and space in relation to all the above and below. I look at the fields thinking, these plants don't take a brake. One day in the life of a plant that only lives for 2 to 3 months is like a year of your life. I can almost watch the corn grow, but then the reddish-green carpet of amaranth sprouts catch my attention and back to hoeing. Sprouting winter squash send roots deep into the soil. We plant the seeds a little thicker than necessary in hopes of a better stand of plants. Some sprouts I pulled out of the ground had shoots 5 or 6 inches long. Only a week old, and now we're already planning and planting some of our fall and winter crops. Lets just slow down and enjoy the end of this crazy spring for a minute. Finally we got a decent little harvest of sugar snap peas, so sweet and crunchy.